Can I intercept html form responses via the webtracker item type? (case 7319)

[affectlab]

I would like to track website activity (i.e., see what web pages people click on and how long they spend on them) but I would also like to have forms on the webpage so that people can type in a number (rating) at various places throughout the website. Would medialab be able to intercept these responses, as it can other html form responses, if I used the webtracker item type?

Thanks!

[jason_reed]

Hi there affectlab.

Interesting question. Blair and I think that there may be a way to do this. Start with a custom item and create the kind of question that you want for people to type their answer into. The "Custom Items" section of the MediaLab interactive user guide and the corresponding exmaples in the "Sample5 custom item" folder in the Sample folder of where you installed MediaLab on your computer are great starting points for learning about custom items.

Then, take the custom item code but use it as a webtracker item. I would assume that you could nestle the custom item form code into the general html code of the webpage for which you want to track activity. Whatever the participants answer when they click in the form you created in the original custom item code should then be recorded in the url of when that form's answer box was clicked. Admittedly, you would have to extract this information yourself from the click info of the webtracker data that corresponds to the form question.

Please let us know what happens when you try this (Blair and I are genuinely curious) or if you have any other questions.

Cheers!