Example Study
Decision-making behavior in a product research task
15 participants chose between three laptops while answering survey questions in LaBrowser's experiment pane. The browsing data reveals something surveys alone never could: what people say matters to them and what they actually research are often very different.
Study Overview
15
Participants
2,610
Total events
52
Search queries
11.4 min
Avg session
60
Survey responses
3
Laptops compared
Participants browsed freely while an experiment pane on the left showed survey questions. The three laptops: MacBook Pro M3 ($1,599), ThinkPad X1 Carbon ($1,299), and Dell XPS 15 ($1,199).
What Participants Said
Survey responses came through the experiment pane as INPUT_SUBMIT events — captured alongside browsing events in the same timeline.
Which laptop would you buy?
MacBook Pro was the most popular choice.
Most important factor?
Price was the most commonly cited reason.
Confidence in choice (1-10)
Most participants were fairly confident (median: 8).
Did you consider all three equally?
Most said yes. The browsing data tells a different story.
What Participants Actually Did
While participants answered surveys, LaBrowser captured their full browsing behavior — every search query, every page visited, every second spent reading reviews.
Minutes spent researching each laptop
Participants who chose a laptop spent 2-3x more time researching it.
Most visited review sources
Notebookcheck and Rtings were the go-to technical review sites.
The Reveal: Stated vs. Actual
This is where it gets interesting. When we compare what participants said was important to them with where they actually spent their browsing time, clear mismatches emerge.
Participants who said "price was most important" spent 51% of their browsing time reading performance reviews — and only 15% comparing prices.
"Price is most important" group (6 participants)
What they said vs. where they actually spent their time (%).
"Performance is most important" group (4 participants)
This group's browsing better matched their stated preference, but price still consumed 30% of their research time.
Per-participant browsing breakdown
Five participants who chose different laptops with different stated reasons. Note how P01, P08, and P12 all said "Price" but spent most time on performance reviews.
"Considered all options equally" — did they?
Participants who said they considered all three laptops equally still spent 58% of their time on the one they ultimately chose.
Scroll Depth & Engagement
How deeply participants read correlates with their decision confidence. Those who scrolled further through reviews reported higher confidence in their final choice.
Avg scroll depth by page type (%)
Reddit threads were scrolled deepest; video review pages least.
Confidence vs. avg scroll depth
More reading correlates with higher confidence.
What Only LaBrowser Shows
This study required two data streams synchronized in real time: explicit responses from the survey and implicit behavior from the browser. No other tool gives you both.
Survey tools
Browser extensions
LaBrowser
Download & Reproduce
The sample dataset and full analysis code are on GitHub. The data files match the exact format you'd export from the LaBrowser Study Console.
Sample data files (events.json, google_search_v1.json, study_config.json) plus a Jupyter notebook and Python script reproducing every chart on this page.
Or clone locally
git clone https://github.com/technologylab-ai/labrowser-example-product-decision cd labrowser-example-product-decision pip install -r requirements.txt jupyter lab analysis.ipynb