Click, scroll, and move heatmaps are a shortcut to understanding how users interact with your product. This tool uses color gradients to show you areas of high interaction and low interaction. If high-interaction areas don't align with key elements, such as CTAs, you know where to make improvements.
It’s important, though, to understand exactly how to use this data to your advantage so you don’t waste time. Below you’ll find a complete guide to common mistakes made when analyzing heatmap insights, along with tips for how to avoid them.
Mistake 1: Misinterpreting heatmap data
It’s easy to conflate user behavior and intent, assuming that a positive action (clicking) aligns with a positive intent (interest). However, that’s not always the case.
For example, if many users are clicking on non-clickable elements, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are showing interest. They may be frustrated because your decorative elements look like interactable buttons.
Conversely, if users are ignoring clickable elements, it may not be because they’re uninterested. They might not realize that an element is clickable, or it might not stand out enough to be noticed.
To avoid making flawed conclusions, it’s important to consider multiple hypotheses for user behavior. Then, you can use other analytics, A/B testing, and user feedback to understand what the heatmap is truly telling you.
Mistake 2: Ignoring context of user actions
Similarly, it’s crucial to factor in the context that informs a user’s actions.
For example, scrollmaps allow you to see how far users generally move down a page, but they can’t tell you why people stop scrolling when they do. Some users may stop midway down the page because they got bored, but many others may stop because they have already gained the necessary information. Likewise, a scrollmap doesn’t record clicks, so you can’t necessarily tell whether users are engaged with the content before they stop scrolling.
Sprig’s Replays tool captures targeted video clips that provide crucial context to help you get a better understanding of user behavior.
Mistake 3: Overlooking mobile and tablet heatmap data
Traditionally, heatmap analysis has focused on desktop versions of products or websites, but that leaves out a large swath of users on your app or mobile version of your site. Skipping over heatmaps from mobile users can eliminate a large source of user data and skew the results of heatmap analysis toward incorrect conclusions.
People interact with desktop and mobile differently, and that plays into your heatmap data. Some of the factors to consider include:
- Device-specific interactions: Users interact with website elements, like dropdown menus, differently on a desktop than they do on a mobile device or tablet. Sometimes, these elements behave differently on a touchscreen, which must be accounted for during heatmap analysis.
- Scrolling: Finger swipes can be more erratic than a mouse or trackpad, causing different scroll map results.
- Screen space: Smaller screens mean different viewpoints. Keep in mind that mobile and tablet users likely have to scroll further to see what desktop users see initially.
Mistake 4: Focusing only on click heatmaps
There are several types of heatmaps, and each of them provides different data. Focusing only on click heatmaps can make you miss crucial insights. Additionally, ignoring other types of heatmaps can impact your heatmap analysis, giving you incomplete or inaccurate results.
Taking a comprehensive approach to heatmap analysis requires looking at data from several different perspectives:
- Scroll maps: Because these heatmaps show how far users scroll down the page, you can see the percentage of users who reach different sections of your content. By combining this information with details from a click heatmap, you can determine whether the placement of content and CTAs impacts the number of conversions.
- Move maps: This type of heatmap tracks mouse movements on a webpage, which shows you where visitors hover their cursor when viewing your content. In many cases, those hover points correlate with visual attention, which can show you which elements of your website are the most eye-catching.
By combining the data from click heatmaps with other types of heatmaps, you can get a better understanding of user behavior and reduce the chances of incorrect analysis and conclusions.
Mistake 5: Not segmenting users for heatmap analysis
Segmentation gives you the tools to better understand what different types of users want and implement targeted changes to improve their user experience. If you just lump all users into one category for heatmap analysis, you can lose the valuable details and insights that drive optimization.
For example, segmenting between desktop and mobile users can show you how each group interacts with your site’s navigation elements. If you find that navigation is more difficult for mobile users, you can optimize your mobile navigation without making changes that negatively impact the desktop experience.
Device and user status are two valuable ways to segment users for heatmap analysis. Segmenting by device allows you to contextualize the user journey on mobile, desktop, and tablet. Comparing new users to returning or regular uses of your product helps, too. This highlights where newcomers may be feeling tripped up and what you can do to ease the process without interfering with the interface returning users are familiar with.
Once you have your segmentation set up, you can compare various heatmaps to see the differences in user behavior.
Sprig’s AI Analysis tool saves time and effort while providing you with powerful insights about user behavior and pain points.
Mistake 6: Relying solely on heatmaps
Heatmaps can be powerful tools, but they aren’t all-encompassing. If you want an accurate and comprehensive understanding of your users’ experience, you need to incorporate other types of data and analytics.
Heatmaps provide quantitative data about user interactions, but it doesn’t offer much information about why users behave the way they do. For that, you need direct user feedback, which provides the qualitative counterpart to heatmap data.
Let’s say your heatmap analysis shows that a key section of your website receives very low user interaction. You don’t just need to know there’s an engagement problem, you need to understand why it’s happening.
Asking for direct feedback from your users makes it possible to determine if that lack of engagement is due to technical issues, lack of interest, or confusion. Sprig’s Feedback tool allows you to gather continuous feedback within your app. It also automatically tracks critical customer satisfaction metrics such as NPS and CSAT scores.
Mistake 7: Overreacting to data from heatmaps
Because heatmaps are so visually appealing and easy to understand, it can be tempting to make sweeping changes based on their findings. However, it’s vital to avoid spontaneous decisions based solely on heatmap data. Overreacting can lead to misguided decisions that waste resources and negatively impact the user experience.
As indicated above, heatmaps don’t indicate the cause of certain interactions. If you see that many users are clicking on a non-interactable element, for example, you might interpret that as interest without realizing that the true cause is a confusing design choice. Instead, slow down and use other analytics to determine the best ways to optimize the user experience.
A/B testing can be useful when trying to decide how to correct an issue identified by heatmap analysis. It’s also a good idea to ask your users directly what would make their experience better. Sprig’s In-Product Surveys give you valuable, real-time insights about your users’ experience with your site.
By combining this analytics data with heatmap analysis, you can make changes that best serve your customers and avoid emotionally charged missteps.
Mistake 8: Failing to set clear goals
While a heatmap will provide important insights in most scenarios, you’ll get more value out of heatmap analysis by setting objectives first. After you set goals, you can define KPIs (key performance indicators) that allow you to objectively determine whether the changes you make actually improve your website.
Before you start diving into heatmaps, decide what your objectives are. Common use cases are:
- Improving conversion rates
- Determining the best location for CTA buttons
- Identifying form fields that cause confusion
- Streamlining navigation
- Identifying UX friction points in your product
Once you set your goals, you can segment your users and decide which analytics you want to use in addition to your heatmaps. Then, you can use the information you gain to decide which actions to take.
For example, let’s say that your goal is to increase the number of people using an automatic transcription feature in your meeting software. You could use click maps to see where most users stop following the setup process. It may also be useful to look at a scroll map to see if there is essential information located in an area of the page that many users skip.
Once you have those heatmap insights, you can survey your customers to learn more about why they aren’t taking advantage of this feature. For example, maybe the survey indicates that they don’t understand the need of the automatic transcription feature, which could call for improved marketing or on-page copy about it.
Mistake 9: Overcomplicating heatmap analysis
It can be tempting to read additional insights into heatmap analysis. However, one of the biggest benefits of heatmap analysis is that it’s simple and straightforward. Adding layers of complexity can introduce confusion and misinformation, impacting accuracy.
It’s usually best to focus on high-impact areas for heatmap analysis. This type of data analysis can offer essential insights to help you optimize your CTAs, content placement, and navigation.
Avoid making decisions based on outdated heatmap analysis. It’s important to regularly review your heatmaps and iterate the process, especially after you’ve made changes. Make sure to segment your users so your heatmap provides the precise information you want to evaluate.
Avoiding common heatmap analysis mistakes
Heatmap analysis can be powerful, especially if used in conjunction with other analytics. However, avoid making decisions solely based on heatmap data and assuming the intention behind user behavior.
Instead, set clear objectives for your analysis and choose your user segments and heatmap type accordingly. Once you have the initial results from heatmap analysis, gather direct feedback from users to corroborate those results and learn the cause of the behaviors indicated by the heatmap.
Then, combine all this data to decide what changes you need to make to optimize the user experience. The whole process is easy with Sprig’s Heatmaps tool, which combines essential heatmap data with powerful AI analysis to provide key insights and drive effective UX improvement.
Use heatmap analysis to drive decision-making
Heatmaps allow you to experience your website from your users’ point of view. They can show you how far most users scroll, where most people click, and which elements capture attention. Heatmap analysis — when combined with other analytics — can help you understand how to improve your website for a better user experience.
Sprig offers several tools to help you better understand user behavior and its contributing factors. To see what Sprig can do for your business, book a demo.