We want using Neo4j to be like putting on your graph goggles — all you see is your data, your relationships, and your queries.
A guiding principle of our User Experience is that you should focus on what you want to do, rather than worrying about how to get it done. We always welcome direct feedback. However it’s not always possible or feasible to explain what you think about the software and how you’d like it improved. For this reason, we’ve designed a program to help you share information about how you use the Neo4j Browser, in a non-intrusive manner that shares non-sensitive statistics about your use of Neo4j’s developer UI. Think of it as crowdsourcing feedback from the community, so that we can make the product better together.
Should you choose to accept this mission, the,Neo4j Browser will gather usage statistics in the background periodically, that will help us understand what things to make better, faster, and more helpful. That’s our Neo4j User Experience Improvement Program. When you participate, you will be helping us help you, and others like you.
Neo4j Browser
Neo4j Browser is the included client application used to interact with the database. It accumulates statistics about user-interface and query activity: without capturing any user credentials (we generate a random token as an identifier) and without capturing any of your queries or data. With your permission, these statistics are shared with a service that collects and aggregates the information.
Collection and Use of Information
Interactions of interest to Neo’s user interface designers are collected by Neo4j Browser during normal use, triggered by specific actions such as clicking on a button or running a query. The statistics count the number of occurrences of each tracked event, for example: how many times a given action was performed in a specified time period.
Tracked events include starting the client application, opening a help page, and saving, editing or saving a query. In addition to event statistics, Neo4j Browser generates a random unique identifier for each client, and also stores a reference to the hosting Neo4j database, which is also a random unique identifier. All information is saved to locally to HTML5 LocalStorage.
Within the application, tracking these events helps adapt the user interface to a user’s current activity.
When shared, the subset of shared statistics helps inform product development decisions by providing insight into common use and potential areas for improvement. Data is transmitted at most once per day, and only when Neo4j Browser is in use.
Third Party
Neo uses a third-party service called Intercom, which is designed for exactly this purpose: collecting user feedback with an aim of improving the user experience. When sharing is enabled, Neo4j Browser will gather client application statistics and transmit them to Intercom as described above, and Neo’s product team will run reports to understand the data and inform design decisions. Intercom is also used for submitting free-form “suggestion box” messages.