Calculate how much time the user looks at recyclerview item

Question

I have a screen with a list of products implemented using a recyclerview. I am looking for a way to check how much time the user spends looking at a certain item in the list. In this way I can know in which items is he interested so I can build him an "maybe interested in" list. More exactly..if a user stays on that item more than x seconds I retain that item id and do the rest... Any kind of ideea or help helps me alot. Thanks

Answer 1

One option is to do something similar to Android: how to check if a View inside of ScrollView is visible? to determine which view is actually within the visible screen. It can be modified slightly to detect if the entire view is visible rather than only a portion.

You're probably also going to have to track the time started/stopped viewing in the recycle view's adapter.

Answer 2

I don't like idea to display user something like "maybe interested in" based on your logic. Because user has seen it already. It can be super annoying if I buy computer mouse and then I see it on every Activity I visit... I'd rather see some items from same category as most seen items but not the most seen items themself. That's why I highly suggest you to count time inside item details Activities (onStart/onStop methods)

But Answer can be something like this: See following methods:

RecyclerView.Adapter.onBindViewHolder (View created because it is most likely going to be visible to user)

RecyclerView.Adapter.onViewRecycled (View will be recycled - 100% not visible on screen)

You can create some Map or another database column (don't know your project structure) to store item id's and timestamps from

private class MyHolder extends RecyclerView.ViewHolder {
    long itemId;
    long start;

    public MyHolder(View itemView) {
        super(itemView);
    }
}

@Override
public void onBindViewHolder(BindingHolder holder, int position) {
    holder.itemId = ...;
    holder.start = System.currentTimeMillis();
}

@Override
public void onViewRecycled(BindingHolder holder) {
    super.onViewRecycled(holder);
    long currentTime = System.currentTimeMillis();
    long difference = currentTime - holder.start;
    // store result
    map.put(holder.itemId, difference);
    // to better match your needs update map item and do not overwrite it
}

This is not 100% solution, but is the simplest one.

To implement it inside Activities use same System.currentTimeMillis() method inside onStart and onStop methods (or onResume/onPause). See Acticity lifecycle so that you know where you need it.