Types of heatmap UX tools
Ok, as we’ve established, heatmaps are data visualization tools that help product managers and user researchers understand user behavior and interaction on webpages or in digital products (like mobile apps).
As a general rule, heatmaps show you areas of higher engagement using colors (often red for high engagement, with cooler tones for areas of low engagement — hence the name “heatmap”), or intensity (a heatmap can also be displayed as a gradient, where areas of higher engagement may be more intense, while low engagement regions are lighter).
There are several different types of heatmaps, each offering unique metrics and insights:
1. Click heatmaps
Click heatmaps show you where users are clicking the most within software applications or on webpages. They display the data by overlaying hotspots and cold spots on top of the user interface, showing you where the areas of highest and lowest engagement are, and revealing what may be underused elements.
This makes click heatmaps great for assessing whether users are interacting with CTAs (call-to-action buttons), navigation, or other clickable elements as intended, as well as offering insight into any usability issues with the page.
2. Scroll heatmaps (Scroll maps)
Scroll heatmaps (sometimes called scroll maps) display how far down a webpage or page in your product users scroll, showing you which sections hold their attention and which they may ignore. This data visualization of user interaction can help product managers understand whether important content is placed too low on the page, or if users aren’t reaching critical information.
Alternatively, from a marketing perspective, scroll depth can help reveal how engaging people are finding your content — the more people make it to the end of your blog posts or resource pages, the more likely they are to find your content compelling or useful.
3. Mouse movement (hover or move) heatmaps
Heatmaps that show mouse movement (sometimes called hover maps or move maps) track where users move their mouse (or cursor) across a webpage or app. While it’s not technically a direct indicator of eye movement, mouse tracking is a good indicator of user attention.
That attention can also have positive or negative implications. For example, it may be that users aren’t sure what to click on, and so are hunting around for an action to take (this is something that could be confirmed using session recordings, and understood at scale using Sprig Replay and AI Analysis).
How to improve UX using heatmap analysis and insights
Whether you’re running an ecommerce platform, building a SaaS application, or launching a new feature, getting an in-depth view of user activity is critical to improving user flows. By visualizing how users interact with a product or webpage, heatmaps can pinpoint what’s working, where users are struggling, and where opportunities for improvement exist.
TL;DR - Seeing what people are doing helps you build empathy and make their experiences better. They translate user activity into actionable insights.
Review user engagement to improve in-product navigation
Heatmaps provide product managers with valuable insights that can guide critical product updates, feature launches, and roadmap decisions. Using heatmap tools can help you quickly identify problems and make data-driven design decisions to improve how people navigate your product.
For example: Suppose a product manager sees that users rarely click on a prominently placed button through click heatmaps. This could indicate a usability issue or unclear messaging. You can use that data to redesign the button, update its label, or relocate it, potentially increasing user engagement with the feature.
Monitor feature usage to get ideas for new iterations
Heatmaps can uncover unexpected user behaviors that spark ideas for new iterations. If users repeatedly interact with non-clickable elements (e.g., trying to click on static images or headings), as a product manager, you might identify an opportunity to add interactivity where users expect it.
For example, if a heatmap shows users frequently hovering over a chart in a data analytics tool, adding a feature like “drill-down” functionality options or tooltips that give more data insights could be a natural next iteration.
Look for dead clicks to increase conversion opportunities
Using a click heatmap, you can identify dead clicks (clicks on non-interactive page elements) that could indicate confusion about how and where visitors should engage with your webpage or app.
This information could also help improve conversion rates — if there is an element that is drawing attention and clicks, but doesn’t drive any action, you could update your page content to make the page element interactive or tie it to a CTA, improving and smoothing the user journey.
Spot rage clicks to find bugs and broken elements
Rage clicks (as the name implies) are a series of clicks in rapid succession, and can be considered indications of frustration (the way you might keep hitting a button on a vending machine if the Rold Gold pretzels aren’t working, or banging on the glass to get the bag to fall if it’s stuck — ok, enough about pretzels already).
For product managers, click heatmaps and rage clicks can help you quickly find and identify bugs or broken page elements, and communicate both with your customer service and development teams to resolve the problem faster.
Find underperforming CTAs to drive more clicks
Remember when we were talking about mouse movements and scroll heatmaps? These can show product managers which CTAs aren’t performing, and hint at the reasons why.
For example, if you’ve got your CTAs positioned too far down the webpage, then maybe users simply aren’t getting there. Or, maybe they’re seeing the CTA, but never clicking on it because they’re not sure it’s the right action for them to take, or they’re looking for further information. In both instances, heatmaps help you piece together the clues, and when confirmed with session replays, can inform design decisions that improve click rates.
Segment users to optimize UX for specific devices or attributes
It might sound obvious at first, but heatmaps can reveal how users on different devices interact with the product. For example, mobile users may face navigation issues that aren’t apparent on desktop (sometimes this is tied to the responsiveness of your website).
By segmenting your data based on their device types, you can identify usability issues that may significantly impact one kind of interface, while not affecting users on other devices. You can then optimize the design and functionality for each platform to make them more user-friendly.
Identify cold spots to find areas for design or content improvements
As opposed to hotspots, cold spots are the areas where you get the least engagement. But why is that?
Because heatmaps are a visualization of visitor behavior, they can tell you what users are finding the most interesting or compelling about your site or app. Cold spots in your move maps or scroll maps may spark inspiration for improvements in design, or more engaging content.
Evaluate scroll depth to improve common drop-off points
Scroll heatmaps, as we’ve discussed, show the depth to which users scroll down your webpage (that’s why the area “above the fold” — a reference to the upper part of a newspaper where the most prominent headlines are displayed, before it’s folded in half — is so important; it’s the first thing that people see and doesn’t require them to do anything to reach it).
With a website heatmap, you can quickly identify where users drop off, and either prioritize your content accordingly, or brainstorm ways to drive deeper engagement (or, preferably, both).
Analyze AI-generated insights to evaluate UX issues at scale
With Sprig’s AI tools, you can combine heatmaps with session replays and derive more value, faster from your web analytics.
As you run Sprig Heatmaps, Sprig’s AI Analytics is constantly monitoring and collecting data thematically, helping you identify problems, resolve issues, and find areas to improve more quickly.
Rather than manually monitoring your data, Sprig gives you the ability to see broader trends and share them with your cross-functional partners, making you both more in tune with your users, as well as more nimble in collaboratively developing solutions.
The results page of a Heatmap study in Sprig — including the AI Summary and heatmap, scrollmap, and clickmap data.
6 ways to enhance heatmap data with UX insights
Product managers can enhance their UX insights by combining heatmap data with other valuable data sources, leading to a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior. By integrating tools like session replays, usability testing, A/B testing, surveys, continuous feedback, and user interviews, product managers can identify not just what users are doing, but also why they are doing it.
Here’s how each of these methods can deepen UX insights, including (only where relevant, we promise!) Sprig products.
1. Session replay
Session replay allows you to get a granular look at how a real user interacts with your product. While it’s not quite as simple as a video recording (more on how session replays work in our comprehensive guide here), session replays work by reconstructing actual sessions based on user interactions.
For product managers, there is no more direct way to gain a deeper understanding of the user experience.
Sprig Replays differ slightly from traditional session replays in that they allow you to target specific activities using triggers that initiate recording. That means rather than watching a user session from start to finish, Sprig generates clips based on actions or demographics that allow you to zero in on the parts that matter most, saving you time and making it easier to collaborate with cross-functional partners.
Also unique to Sprig Replays is its AI Analysis, which groups and categorizes your replay clips based on themes to uncover patterns in your users’ behavior at scale and save you hours of manually sifting through every single recording. This AI-assisted approach allows you to scale your session replay and heatmap data and move more quickly to address problems and identify product opportunities.
Results page of a Replay study in Sprig — Sprig AI instantly analyzes and groups session clips into themes to uncover patterns in your users' behavior.2. Usability testing
Usability testing involves giving users specific tasks to complete while observing how they interact with the product. It helps product managers gather direct feedback on design choices, uncover pain points, and validate new features.
When combined with heatmap data, usability tests can confirm whether users are navigating the product as expected. Product managers can refine workflows, improve navigation, and reduce friction based on how test users interact with key features.
3. A/B testing
A/B testing allows product managers to compare two versions of a webpage or feature to see which performs better. Heatmaps can provide visual insights into user interactions for each variation.
By combining A/B testing with heatmaps, product managers can visualize how users interact differently with the two versions. That way, you can identify which elements drive engagement and conversions, and which variations improve usability.
For example, you could run an A/B test where one version of a page has a CTA at the top, while the other places it in the middle. You could then use heatmaps to show that users in the second group scroll more before engaging, prompting further tests to determine the ideal button placement.
4. User surveys
Surveys are another way to gather direct feedback from users, allowing product managers to understand user motivations, frustrations, and preferences. This qualitative data provides context to the quantitative insights from heatmaps.
When you combine survey results with heatmaps, product managers can understand why users behave in a certain way. For example, if a heatmap shows users are not engaging with a feature, a survey can reveal whether it’s due to confusion, lack of interest, or a technical issue.
With Sprig Surveys, you can collect targeted feedback on specific UX elements and quickly analyze all responses at scale using Sprig’s AI Analysis. Pairing user feedback collected from surveys with the behavior data from heatmaps helps product managers understand the why behind user interactions.
Survey results page in Sprig — Sprig AI analyzes all responses to generate a study summary and key takeaways.5. Continuous feedback
Continuous feedback tools capture ongoing user input on new features, UX changes, or design improvements. Having an ever-present feedback widget in your product or webpage creates a real-time feedback loop that helps product managers stay aligned with user needs and expectations.
Using continuous feedback alongside heatmaps allows product managers to track user sentiment over time, particularly after launching (and validating) new features. If heatmaps show a decrease in engagement, feedback can help pinpoint why.
With Sprig's Feedback tool, product managers can collect real-time feedback, and use Sprig’s AI to analyze it and get actionable insights at scale, giving them the ability to quickly understand how users react to new product iterations, as well as to correlate this with heatmap data.
Sprig AI automatically summarizes open-text Feedback study responses to give you actionable learnings and product optimizations.6. User interviews
User interviews provide the most in-depth qualitative insights into user experiences, motivations, and frustrations.
They help uncover the deeper reasoning behind user behavior, which can complement data from heatmaps. By combining the two, product managers can validate assumptions, identify areas for improvement, and make more informed design decisions.
Develop deeper UX insights by combining heatmaps with other data sources
The Sprig platform allows you to layer your data and make improvements faster with our combination of heatmaps, session replays, surveys, and continuous feedback tools, all backed by AI-powered analysis.
When you combine heatmaps with AI and other data sources, you can:
- See patterns in user interactions (heatmaps, session replays) faster.
- Better understand why users behave a certain way (surveys, interviews).
- Test new ideas faster and validate changes (A/B testing, usability testing).
- Stay responsive to user feedback and adapt product strategies (continuous feedback).
Drive faster innovation and improve retention with Sprig’s suite of features that allow your product to tell the story, and make your users the heroes.
Get started with Sprig today and help your team collaborate better, make more informed decisions, and take your user experience to the next level.