Heatmap

A page is built on assumptions about what people will read and do. A heatmap tests those assumptions against real behaviour.

It shows the button nobody notices, the section everyone scrolls past and the image people try to click. It can also show a pattern analytics cannot. A bounce rate tells you that people left. A scroll map tells you where on the page they left, so you know which section to fix first.

A heatmap is cheap. Most tools install with a single script, and the picture is easy to share with designers and stakeholders who would not read a table of numbers.

Without it, a redesign is a guess that looks confident. With it, the team starts from what visitors do and chooses what to test.

• Record the current page first. That picture is the baseline any change is judged against.
• Read the scroll map as closely as the click map. A strong call to action below the point where most people stop scrolling is never seen.
• Split the view by mobile and desktop. The same page often behaves very differently on each.
• Pair the heatmap with session recordings when a pattern is unclear. The map shows what happened, and a recording helps explain why.
• Check again after a change instead of assuming the new layout works.

A heatmap takes hundreds or thousands of visits to one page and merges them into a single picture. Warm colours, red and orange, mark the spots that attract the most clicks, taps or attention. Cool colours, blue and green, mark the spots that get little or none.

There are three common types:

• Click maps show where people click or tap, including on things that are not links.
• Move maps show where the cursor travels, which loosely follows where people look on a desktop screen.
• Scroll maps show how far down the page people get before they leave.

Example: a pricing page with a click map in which many visitors tap a plan name that is plain text, not a link. That is a clear sign that people expect it to be clickable.

• Drawing conclusions from a few dozen visits. Colours stabilise only with enough traffic.
• Treating a hot spot as a success. A red area on a form field can mean people are struggling with it.
• Using a heatmap to decide, when it is better at suggesting what to test. Follow a finding with an A/B test.