Mobile App Heatmaps: Analyze User’s Activities

Heatmaps are the analytical tools which can help you climb the ladder of success by visualizing the user’s activity. Read further to know more about heatmaps for mobile apps.

With the increased use of mobile devices, mobile apps are a better way of engaging your users and earning conversions. But analyzing a user’s activity is equally important to know why your visitors are leaving your website and what they demand.

Your organization must be open to new technologies when it compares to optimizing your mobile apps. If you are still using the old day technologies, you will end up getting edgy results only. It’s time to have a sustainable yet promising product by your side, which could help you attain your desired goals. i.e., Better conversions by analyzing user’s activity on your mobile apps.

Mobile app heatmaps are one of them – If you want to deliver the best products to your customers, you must have a strong analytical foundation. This way, you can get ahead of your competitors. Until now, you must be using heatmaps on websites, let’s implement them on mobile apps.

Read this blog to explore the benefits of mobile app heatmaps for your companies. But first of all, let us define what a Mobile app heatmap is.

Define mobile app heatmap

Mobile app heatmaps are the visual representation of the user’s data for each screen of your mobile app. They show how users are interacting with your app through different colors. For example- the red areas signify the highly engaged regions, and the blue parts of the heatmaps showcase the less engaging areas of your app.

The heatmaps were first implemented in the 19th century to depict the geographical differences of the world. Later on, digital marketers took them into use as an analytical tool to know the customer’s moves and enhance the customer experience. But many companies find them complicated to implement.

Mobile heatmaps are also known as touch heatmaps.

• They imply the gestures of the users on your app.
• How does it work? SDK of the analytic solutions tracks every interaction of the users.
• It saves even the minutest gestures of the users on the mobile screen.

 Examples of user’s gestures–

zoom, taps, double-taps, swipe-up, or swipe-down.

The heatmaps are the aggregation of the above data.

What are the benefits of mobile app heatmaps :

Mobile heatmaps are not complex to understand; however, marketers find them a bit complicated. On the contrary, it gives you a simplistic view of your users and how to nurture them by enhancing the customer experience.

What are the elements you can pick up through the heatmaps :

• Introspect the elements which are getting maximum attention from the users.
• You can enhance the conversions by improving the less attentive areas.
• Explore the unresponsive areas of the app and see if users have even touched them or not.
• Recognize the behavior of the users on a specific device.
• Decide which areas need ab testing for further refined results.

Note: Heatmaps are quite intuitive, and you can easily present the user’s activity when it comes to showcasing your report to stakeholders.

What is the difference between Mobile heatmaps and web heatmaps :

The significant difference between web heatmaps and mobile heatmaps is that of UX systems and technology.

• Input methods: You all must be aware that users navigate websites that are placed on bigger screens while the mobile apps are smaller in navigation. Also, the user’s activities are reflective in the form of clicks on different areas of the website, while those clicks are called gestures on mobile apps.
• Technology: Due to the above difference, there need to be UX changes on mobile apps for providing better navigation to the users. Therefore the technology must be different. Technicians use HTML Codes for the websites, after which you can generate user’s data through heatmaps. But for the mobile apps, UX and UI changes are more critical.
• Scrolling: When a user navigates through the websites, the experience is the same while it differs in mobile apps. The infinite scroll makes it all more challenging. Like the same apps would provide different experiences for android or ios users.
• Navigation: You can easily differentiate between the websites by different URLs, but the mobile apps work on screen by screen basis.

What are the types of mobile heatmaps :

Although it’s challenging to implement heatmaps on mobile apps, if we understand the different types of heatmaps, half of your worries will automatically go away.

The first type of heatmap that comes in the category is Rage-tap heatmaps.

1. Rage-tap heatmaps: As the name implies, it depicts the constant taps by the users on specific areas of the app, which doesn’t respond. Suppose a customer is using an app, and he is continuously tapping on an element, but it is not responsive. Usually, more than two taps within a specific diameter or radius of the screen imply the rag-tap heatmaps.

Note: You can generate heatmaps and analyze the rage tap elements to enhance customer experience without any frustration.

2. Unresponsive gesture heatmaps: These heatmaps define the elements which a user touches upon, but they do not respond. The details are there, but they are unresponsive. You can analyze such elements by implementing heatmaps. These elements are not for much attention, but the users tap on them.
3. First touch heatmaps: These heatmaps depict the first and foremost impression of the users on the screen. You can analyze the elements which a user taps on while they first see the screen.
4. Last touch heatmaps: These heatmaps are contrary to the first touch heatmaps. They depict the final touch of the users on the screen while they leave the website.
5. Device heatmaps: Different users use different devices to open up your app. Of Course, you require a different kind of heatmap for analyzing different device experiences. You can identify the issues and users face while going through your app using a specific device. You can critically analyze smartphone issues also.
6. Landscape and horizontal heatmaps: The users don’t need to use your app in the landscape mode. Sometimes they use it in the horizontal mode. You can adjust the heatmaps according to the users’ point of view and analytically watch out how the users have interacted with your screens.

How to use mobile app heatmaps :

As stated above, heatmaps help you draw out the conclusion from the user’s activity on your apps. You can see the largely impacted areas on the heatmaps with the array of colors and see how you can remove the flaws for better user experience.

Heatmaps are best suited for integrating large suits of data. Let’s see how to use heatmaps and for what purposes :

1. Know what your user wants: To improve a user’s experience of your app, you must optimize the app interface. Make your site visually attractive to enchant the customers. You can analyze the elements that users are aesthetically focusing on and the elements which are overlooked by them. This way, you will get to know what your users want.

App heatmaps will capture not only the main gestures but also the sophisticated ones such as zooms, long-press or trails, etc. Suppose a user is clicking on an image, but it is not clickable. You can simply add a link to this area to optimize the user’s experience.

2. Enhance the user’s experience:

Suppose a company is using heatmaps to optimize the login page of their apps. They implemented heatmaps to understand the user’s behavior. After applying the heatmaps, they came out with the results. They concluded that 90 percent of users were using Facebook login button options instead of the create your account or other options. Therefore, the company put the Facebook login button option on top of the other options. Changing merely the option order improved the user experience.

3. Optimize conversions: CTA is the most prominent element of your web page or app. So, watching each gesture on this element becomes your ultimate goal or responsibility. Remember the proper positioning of your CTA; otherwise, the odd positioning can result in bad results. Put the CTA in the high traffic area where you have not put any links.

Ask yourself questions as to how you can improve user experience by looking into the areas which are hampering the users’ complete checkout process. View the elements which are allowing people to abandon the process. Mobile heatmaps can save a lot of your time and money.

How to implement mobile heatmaps for optimizing key performance indicators in an industry :

The benefits of mobile heatmaps are endless, and every organization can put them to their use according to their requirements. Be it the e-commerce industry or the digital marketing one. Every industry has its unique use cases and customer pain points, which they need to dissolve to achieve key performance indicators. i.e.maximum revenues and conversions.

Mobile marketers must focus on the elements of their mobile apps for enhancing customer experience. i.e., UI and UX of the mobile apps. Both are interrelated and interconnected.

What are the elements that consist of the UI of the mobile app :

UI is the mobile app interface that a user can see on the screens. It consists of :

• Content
• Images
• Layout
• CTA buttons
• Navigation

A mobile heatmap tracks every gesture of the users on the mobile screen and further uses these insights to improve the above elements.

Let us take the example of specific industries :

1. E-commerce industry:

Its foundation lies on allowing the user to complete the checkout process and buy their product easily without any distractions. What could be the distractions which do not allow users to sign-in and turn into customers: it could be confusing content or broken links. You can simply look at the app’s log-in-page heatmap.

2. Travel industry: The travel industry must focus on the icons which take users to the home screen of the app. It must see whether the users are finding the right icon or not. In case your users are not clicking on the key elements and going on elsewhere, then you must change the positioning of the critical elements to get higher clicks.
3. Analysts: They can use heatmaps to optimize all the elements that consist of the UI and UX of the app. If you provide a better experience to the users, there are chances that they will return to your website for sure. Otherwise, a bad experience will leave a long-lasting wrong impression on the users. Suppose if 80 percent of your users leave your site without getting converted, it means you have lost a lot of your opportunities.

You can use heatmaps to improve the retainment of users on the page for a long time :

• Rearranging the order of the content.
• Optimize the text elements which will redirect the users to the key icons. You can add directions to simplify the process. ( click here to grab new offers).
• Put links in between the content that will land the users on your goal conversions.

Heatmaps can help you optimize the above elements and many more.

CONCLUSION

The wipes, touch, and even zoom outs on the screen can help you out in changing your mobile interface. Sometimes a minute change can help you get better and marvelous results. Let your heatmaps give you the right and informative results so that you can get desired results. Also, you can choose one or all types of mobile heatmaps as per your business requirements. You can always try out new things, only then you can know which heatmap serves you better and works out best for your business!

Mobile app heatmaps save you from facing the dead-end results for the elements you can always optimize and enhance. Let your users have an enlightening and enchanting mobile app experience with whatever devices they are using to go through your app.