No, We Don’t Need Session Replays in a Law Office
Watching your clients navigate your website like rats in a maze is not 'optimization.' It is intrusion. We explore why Session Replay tools have no place in a professional firm.
The Peeping Tom in the Dashboard
Imagine you are sitting in a conference room with a client. They are reading a contract. You lean over their shoulder, watching their eyes move across the page, noting exactly where they pause, where they frown, where their finger hovers.
They would be horrified.
Yet, we install scripts like Hotjar, CrazyEgg, or FullStory that do exactly this. They record the digital body language of our visitors. We sit in our marketing meetings, watching playbacks of strangers navigating our site. “Look,” we say, “he hesitated on the pricing page.”
We treat this as scientific observation. It is not. It is voyeurism.
The Intrusion: The Reality Show
These tools normalize a surveillance mindset. They encourage us to view our clients not as autonomous professionals, but as subjects in a lab experiment.
Furthermore, these tools are dangerous.
I have seen session replays that accidentally captured the text inside a “confidential” form field before the user hit submit. I have seen them capture passwords. I have seen them capture medical details.
Even if the vendor promises to “mask” this data, you are relying on a script to perfectly redact sensitive information in real-time. If that script fails for one second, you have just recorded a client’s private secrets onto a third-party server.
Is “optimizing the button color” really worth that liability? Voilà, the answer is no.
The Boundary: Restraint as a Feature
We do not need to watch people to build better websites.
The professional standard is Restraint.
- Use Aggregated Metrics: Knowing that 40% of people drop off at the “Contact” page is a statistic. Watching John drop off is an intrusion. The statistic is enough to know you have a problem.
- Conduct Consensual Testing: If you really want to know why people are confused, hire five people. Pay them. Ask them to use the site while you watch. They know they are being observed. It is honest. It is clean.
We must draw a hard line. Our digital spaces should be as discreet as our physical offices. When a client visits your site, they should feel alone with your content, not accompanied by an invisible marketing team taking notes on their mouse movements.
Turn off the cameras. Trust your design. Respect your client.
FAQs
How will we know where users get stuck without replays?
You look at the conversion rates. Or, shockingly, you could ask them. Usability testing with consent is far superior to secret spying.
The tool says it masks keystrokes. Is that safe?
Software fails. Masks slip. I have seen passwords and health data captured by 'secure' replay tools. Do not take the risk.
Is this illegal?
In many jurisdictions, recording behavior without explicit consent is a wiretapping risk. Why invite the lawsuit?