Live website testing with Maze allows your team to run usability tests to understand how users are interacting with your live websites. Before running a usability test on your website for the first time, you’ll need to decide which website test mode best suits your needs; testing with the snippet or testing without the snippet.
In this article:
- Before you start
- Who can use this feature
- Create a live website test without the snippet
- Create a live website test with the snippet (optional)
- Results & Reports
- FAQs
- Security and performance
Before you start
- In-page events/interactions (e.g. clicking a toggle) aren’t captured as steps in the path. The URL must change between different screens for the test to be meaningful. Why do I see a “We didn’t detect any clicks on this page” when creating a path?
- The test experience must take place on a single tab. At the moment, the ability to test websites that open a new tab or window (even if those locations also have the snippet installed) isn’t supported.
- There are currently some limitations around displaying results data for website testing. Learn more
Who can use this feature?
Live website testing is available for users on all plans.
Create a live website test without the snippet
- Open a draft Maze
- Click Add block, then select website test.
- Enter the task title and an optional description
- Paste the URL of your website, your competitor’s site, or link to your AI generated prototypes
Configure device and recording settings
We strongly recommend to enable screen recordings, as with snippet-less testing, recording would be your source of truth to see exactly what your users are interacting with.
Results & Reports
Quantitative data, such as heatmaps and Sankey diagrams, are available for website tests only when the Maze snippet is installed.
Create a live website test with the snippet (optional)
Before running a usability test on your website for the first time, you’ll need to install the Maze tracking code on the website. You’ll also be prompted to follow these steps from your draft maze if you haven’t added the code to your URL’s domain yet when creating a live website testing block.
- Open a draft maze.
- Click Add block, then select Website Test.
- Enter the task title and an optional description. Learn best practices for writing task prompts
- Click Add link and paste the URL of your website, and click Add.
Please note:
- The URL you paste will be the starting page/screen of your test.
- The URL must include a valid scheme (e.g.
https://). - A small floating window will open with a preview of your website. Please don’t close this window; this is an important step for Maze to detect whether the snippet is working correctly on your website.
Set the device type
Define paths (optional)
Paths are the baseline for measuring the success of a mission. If you set a path, Maze will automatically categorize each test as Direct success, Indirect success, or Mission unfinished.
You don’t have to pre-define paths when setting up a website test.
Without defining a path, it’s not possible for Maze to establish whether each participant’s path was successful. As a result, paths will appear in the results as Uncategorized. Why are some paths marked as “Uncategorized”?
Please note that in-page events/interactions (e.g. clicking a toggle) aren’t captured as steps in the path. The URL must change between different screens for the test to be meaningful. Why do I see a “We didn’t detect any clicks on this page” when creating a path?
To set up a path on your website test:
- In your draft maze, add a website block.
- To start creating your paths, click Create path. A floating window will open with a preview of your website. Avoid opening the task window in a new tab and/or in full screen, as it may exceed the maximum window dimension and trigger a “Window size too large” error. Learn more about device resolution in website tests
- Click through the website to define the path you expect the participants to take to complete the task. At the moment, each page change or parameter change counts as a screen in the path. Learn more about paths
- To add more paths, click + Add new path.
- Once you’re done, click Save and close to save the paths and go back to the draft maze.
Screenshot anonymization
When testing on a live website, you may be collecting personally identifiable information (PII) from your participants. For example, if you ask users to log in to their account as part of your test, the screenshots on your Results dashboard may include anything they’ve entered when logging in, as well as any data on their personal area.
Maze allows you to mask the content of the screenshots in your results in two ways: at the block level, or globally using HTML attributes.
At the block level
When creating a website test, you’ll need to select how text should be displayed in the screenshots on your results page.
- Strict: Hides all text, both in the UI and anything entered in an input box. The results page will show only the visual elements.
- Balanced: Hides anything entered in input boxes, as well as numbers and email addresses. Generally, this is the option we’d generally recommend, as it allows you to protect your participants’ sensitive data while still being able to see the UI.
Please be mindful that, if you enable Clips, the recording will show all information on the screen. Clips recordings aren’t anonymized.
To protect your participants’ privacy, it’s not possible to change the anonymization settings after the maze goes live.
Masking/unmasking content by default
You can also add an extra layer of security and mask/reveal certain content globally, regardless of the chosen setting in Maze.
To do so, add one of the following attributes to the relevant HTML blocks:
data-maze-mask="True"
data-maze-unmask="True"
Adding these attributes will either mask or unmask the content of an HTML element in the maze results. These attributes override the anonymization settings set at the block level. For example:
- If you add
data-maze-mask="True"as an attribute to an HTML element, the content is always hidden (i.e. strict anonymization) in the results, even with the anonymization setting of the block set to “Relaxed”. - The
data-maze-unmask="True"attribute will always reveal the content in the HTML element (i.e. relaxed anonymization), even with the anonymization setting of the block set to “Strict”.
Enable session recordings
Toggle Clips through Study requirements to collect video and screen recordings of usability tasks in Maze. When enabled, this setting applies to all missions. Learn more about enabling Clips
Define conditional logic (optional)
Because paths are optional in website tests, it's not possible to define conditions based on mission outcomes.
In website tests, it's only possible to use ALWAYS conditions to direct participants to the next block or a specific block.
Add more blocks (if needed) and publish your maze
You can add multiple live website tests per maze. To add more tasks, simply create a new Website Test block and repeat the steps above.
Once everything is ready, preview the maze and send it live to start testing.
Results & Reports
As participants complete your live maze, you’ll start seeing insights in the Results dashboard.
Learn more about your live website test results
Maze reports make it easy to analyze, share, and present your results data. Reports are automatically generated for every live maze tested with at least one participant.
See how reporting looks like for website testing blocks
Current limitations when viewing live website test results
- Due to technical limitations, heatmap screens won’t always capture the live website page in perfect detail.
- Overlays and modals aren’t captured in heatmaps; only the base page/screen.
FAQs
Why do I see a "preview isn't available" warning in the website test block?
When you add a URL to a website test block, Maze sends a request to retrieve metadata from the website, including a preview thumbnail. If the request times out or the website doesn't respond, you'll see a warning noting the following:
The preview isn't available for this URL. You can still continue, but we recommend testing the link before publishing.
Learn more about why this warning shows and how to prevent it
Why do I see a “Couldn’t detect a code snippet” warning?
This warning means that you haven’t added your unique Maze snippet to that website yet. Your ad blocker might also be preventing the snippet from being detected. Learn how to install the Maze code on your website
My website is password-protected / behind a login wall. Can I still run a website test?
Yes. You can run usability tests on websites where logging in or entering a password is required.
As long as the tracking code is correctly installed, you just need to guarantee that your participants have the required credentials to access your website.
Can I test Single Page Applications (SPAs)?
Single Page Applications (SPAs) load a single page and dynamically update it as the user interacts with the app. These applications don’t reload the page when the URL is modified in the browser. As a result, the Maze code snippet can’t detect a new URL to register a new step in the testing path. Therefore, it isn’t possible to track single-page events that don’t change the URL.
That said, we do support query parameters in website URLs. This means that any parameter changes are registered as a new step in the success path of the website test. How are URL query parameters handled in live website testing?
Security and performance FAQs
Learn more about security and performance FAQs for website tests here
Still need help?
If you have any questions or concerns, please let our Support team know — we'll be happy to help!