Capture ideas with the idea assistant

You often spot something while you look at a heatmap, a recording or a funnel. The idea assistant lets you note it right there, without switching to another tool.

Add an idea

1. On any page of a site, click the round button with the three orange dots at the bottom right.
2. Type what you see, for example "On mobile, people tap the product photo again and again, but it doesn't zoom". Or click the microphone and say it (see below).
3. Click Send, or press Cmd+Enter on a Mac (Ctrl+Enter on Windows).

After a few seconds you see the idea as a short card: the title, the hypothesis ("If we …, then … because …") and the pages. It is already saved in Ideas.

From the card you can:

• click Edit to open the idea and change anything
• click Build test with AI to let Varly build the test (only with an AI key)
• click Build it myself in the visual editor to make the changes yourself
• click New note to add another idea
• click Remove this idea if the note was a mistake

Press Esc or click the cross to close the panel. A note you haven't sent yet stays in the box when you open it again on another page, until you close the browser tab.

Where you are goes with your note

Above the text box, a small chip shows where you are, for example From: Heatmap of /products/… · Mobile · 7 days. Varly attaches this to your note:

• on a heatmap: the page, device, filter, period and layer (for example rage clicks)
• on a recording: the recording and the moment you were watching
• on funnels: the funnel, device and period
• on other pages: which page you were on

With an AI key, Varly also gives the AI the numbers from that screen, such as the clicks on the heatmap or the visits per funnel step. The AI uses only those numbers and the numbers in your note. It never makes up numbers; Varly checks this and drops any sentence with a number that came from nowhere.

Don't want to attach where you are? Click the cross on the chip before you send.

The idea keeps a link back to where you were. You find it under Research behind this idea and in the Original note card on the idea's page.

What the AI fills in

With an AI key, Varly writes up:

• Title: short, starting with a verb
• If we see…: what visitors run into
• …then we change… and …because we expect…: the hypothesis
• Page: the first page the idea is about, picked from the pages Varly knows on this site
• Device, if your note or the heatmap points to one
• Suggested goal, such as Added to cart or Placed an order
• Labels for the page type and the lever, such as Product page and Usability
• Impact and Ease, as a first estimate
• answers to scoring questions that your note makes clear, such as Above the fold?

Answers the AI filled in show AI suggestion in the Priority card. Check them and change what doesn't fit; once you pick an answer yourself, the label goes away. The AI always writes in English, also when your note is in another language. Your original note is kept on the idea's page.

Each write-up uses your organization's AI key and shows up in the cost overview under Organization settings.

Without an AI key

Your note is saved as a draft idea: its first sentence becomes the title and the whole note becomes If we see…. If you were on a heatmap, the page goes with it. Add an AI key and Varly writes up the hypothesis, pages and labels for you.

Speak your note

Click the microphone, speak, and click it again when you're done. Your words appear in the text box while you speak, so you can fix them before you send. Pick the language you speak in next to the microphone: English, Dutch, German, French or Spanish. Varly starts with the language of your browser.

Voice input works in Chrome, Edge and Safari. In Firefox you only see a crossed-out microphone, and you can type instead.

Your browser turns your speech into text, not Varly. Chrome sends the audio to Google's speech service for this, Edge to Microsoft's and Safari to Apple's. Varly never records or stores audio; it only gets the text.

Where the idea shows up

The idea appears in Ideas under New, with your name and via idea assistant on the card. On the idea's page you see From the idea assistant at the top and your Original note on the right. See Where test ideas come from.

Common problems

• The button looks faded and you can't type. You have the Viewer role, which is read-only. Ask an Owner to make you an Editor.
• "That's a lot of notes in a minute." You can send up to 6 notes a minute and 60 an hour. Wait a moment and send it again; your note stays in the box.
• "The AI could not write this up". Your note is saved as a draft anyway. Check your AI key, then open the idea to fill it in, or send the note again.
• The microphone does nothing. Your browser asks for permission the first time. If you said no, allow the microphone for this site in your browser settings.
• The button covers something. Click the dots to open the panel and the cross to close it. On pages with a save bar at the bottom, the button moves up by itself.