What Are Mobile Heatmaps (Heat Maps)?

In short, mobile app heatmaps are a visual overlay of an array of colors to represent user interactions.

Heatmaps represent the average user activity, which allows you to see what elements get the most attention.

The human eye can comprehend these colors effortlessly and much quicker than humans can analyze a set of numbers.

Heatmaps aggregate large numbers of data from users and compile it in a way that allows us to quickly and accurately conclude from the results.

For this reason, heatmaps are best used in large groups of data and show us extremes — either where the most or the least amount of activity is.

You're likely already leveraging heatmaps on your website with Hotjar, so if you understand the benefits, you may want to read about why UXCam is the alternative for mobile apps. Otherwise, scroll down to find out more.

Curious to know how heatmaps will look in your app? Try UXCam for free — with 100,000 monthly sessions and unlimited features.

How Heatmaps Can Help You

So we have covered what heatmaps are, but why do you want them? What can they do for you?

Optimize Your Mobile App Interface

A visually appealing and easy-to-use app will bring customers in and keep them coming back.

With heatmaps, you can see what gets the most attention from users and what gets overlooked. In doing so, you gain a better idea of what users want from your app.

Gesture Selection in UXCam.

UXCam’s heatmap solution captures sophisticated gestures such as long-press, trail and zoom gestures.

Perhaps users are trying to click on a word or image that is not clickable. If this is the case, it would be an excellent opportunity to add a link to this area to bring the users closer to what they are looking for.

Create a Better User Experience

Let’s take a closer look at a scenario from UXCam.

A company that uses UXCam — let’s call them Photos Inc. — uses heatmaps to understand user behavior. The result is the following:

Based on the results, we can see that the login page of Photo Inc. is okay but perhaps not ideal for its users. Heatmaps show us that most users log in with a Facebook account instead of an email address.

To increase user login and improve the user experience, Photo Inc. has to move its Facebook login button to the top of the list of options.

By doing this, the Facebook sign-in becomes more prominent and moves the email sign-in to second on the list. The first impression of users is related to design in 94% of the cases.

Just that little change could spiral into major improvements for Photo Inc. What improvements could you make to your app?

You may also be interested in: What Is User Behavior Analytics? It’s Not UX Analytics

Increase Conversions

A call to action (CTA for short) is only useful if your readers see it and tap on it. If no one sees your CTA because it’s too far down the page or it’s in an odd place, then you will see a drop in user onboarding.

If users are attempting to click on an area that isn’t linked, you may consider putting a CTA in a high-traffic area that would otherwise be wasted.

Mobile heatmaps are an essential tool to identify the problems that your users are facing. See where your users are getting hung up in the process and where they abandon it.

Does your app need to include more directions for the users? Maybe there’s something that could be simpler? Perhaps you are asking for too much too soon.

Whatever the problem, it should be taken care of right away. By meeting the needs of your users, you also encourage them to use your app more. Mobile app heatmaps are a fantastic tool that can save you time, money and even a headache or two!

You may also be interested in: Top tried and tested heatmap tools for mobile and web products

Best Tool for Mobile App Heatmaps

UXCam is the market leader for mobile app heatmaps.

It supports native iOS, Android, ReactNative, PhoneGap/Cordova, Xamarin and Flutter.

Heatmaps are just one of the many features that UXCam offers:

UXCam integrates easily and quickly into any app. Where other analysis apps may affect your performance, UXCam is lightweight, with no performance penalty.

It also integrates with other programs you may use, such as Adobe Analytics, Firebase Crashlytics and more.

Any questions about heatmaps? Learn more about UXCam features or ask our team directly in a free demo. 

Try UXCam for FREE now — with 100,000 monthly sessions and unlimited features.

For a deeper look at heatmaps and how to use them, download our FREE e-Book: