What friction events are

Friction events are behaviour signals that show where visitors may be confused, blocked, or slowed down. UserTrail records these events from tracked sessions and uses them across Friction, Sessions, Heatmaps, and reports.

The current friction event types are:

• Click error: a JavaScript error happens around a visitor interaction.
• Click rage: a visitor clicks repeatedly in a small area over a short period.
• Dead click: a visitor clicks an element that does not appear to trigger a useful response.
• 404: a visitor lands on a page that cannot be found.
• Bounce: a visitor leaves after a short or limited interaction.
• Speed browsing: a visitor moves through pages unusually quickly.
• Submit failure: a form submit attempt fails or does not complete.

What the friction score means

Friction score is a weighted score that summarises the severity of friction in a session, page, or time period. A higher score means visitors are experiencing more frustration signals.

Use the score as a prioritisation tool, not as a standalone diagnosis. A page with a high score and high traffic should usually be reviewed before a page with a high score and very few visits.

In Friction Score over time:

• 0-0.76 is shown as below industry average.
• 0.77+ is shown as above industry average.

Lower is better.

Where to review friction

Open Friction from a site dashboard to review:

• friction overview by event type
• sessions with friction compared with all sessions
• top pages to focus on
• friction score over time
• pages and elements with the most click friction
• top click errors
• broken links and 404s

Use the date picker and filters to narrow the report by device, location, traffic source, visitor type, and friction event type.

How to investigate a friction event

Start with Top pages to focus on. These pages are ranked using traffic, friction frequency, severity, session exits, page exits, and early friction.

Then open:

• Session replay to watch what the visitor did before and after the event.
• Friction heatmap to see where friction happened on the page.
• Pages with most click friction to compare affected paths.
• Elements with most click friction to identify repeated problematic selectors.

When opening recordings from the Friction page, UserTrail applies the matching friction event filters so the sessions list focuses on the relevant issue.

Using friction filters

Friction filters are available in Friction, Sessions, Heatmaps, Funnels, Forms, and related individual pages.

Use them to answer questions such as:

• Which sessions had rage clicks?
• Which landing pages are generating dead clicks?
• Are mobile visitors seeing more submit failures?
• Which pages have 404 friction?
• Does a campaign source bring visitors with higher friction?

How to prioritise fixes

Prioritise friction using three signals together:

1. Volume: how many visitors or pageviews are affected.
2. Severity: how high the friction score is.
3. Journey impact: whether visitors leave the page or end the session after the friction.

Good first fixes are usually high-traffic pages with repeated dead clicks, rage clicks on important calls to action, submit failures on forms, or 404s from internal links.

Notes and limitations

Friction detection is based on visitor behaviour and browser events. Some events need context from replay or heatmaps before deciding the exact fix.

For example, a dead click may mean an element looks clickable but is not, or it may mean the page responded in a way that was too subtle for the visitor. Review the recording before making large design changes.