An aesthetically designed website may be pleasing to the eyes, but if users struggle to find what they need, complete a task, or feel lost, the design has failed. Keep in mind that it only takes a few seconds to convince website visitors they are in the right place, so designing a website based on how users engage is crucial.

Take, for example, an e-commerce site. If users always abandon their shopping carts at a specific stage, it is important to understand why that happens. Is the shipping cost calculation so confusing? Is the checkout process too complex? Is there something on the website that seems untrustworthy? With this knowledge, designers and developers can implement targeted improvements, turning abandoned carts into successful conversions.

Ways to Track User Interaction

When we talk about user interaction, we’re referring to all actions a user takes within a website, from clicking buttons and switching to a different section to filling out a popup form for WordPress. There are several ways to track and understand these interactions, which we’ll discuss below.

Web Analytics

Google Analytics, Matomo, Similarweb, and other web analytics tools are indispensable for understanding user behavior. They can provide actionable insights based on how visitors interact with a website, helping administrators make design decisions that enhance website performance.

These tools provide quantitative data on bounce rates, traffic sources, time spent on pages, and exit pages. Most importantly, they can track user flow or behavior, allowing web administrators to visualize the paths users take through the website. They also highlight common journeys and bottlenecks that hinder user navigation.

All these insights empower website owners to refine their designs—whether that means making architectural improvements, such as restructuring menus and adding more internal links, optimizing content and layout, or changing calls to action (CTAs) and button colors.

Heatmaps and Click Tracking

While analytics tells you what happened, heatmaps and click tracking show you where users are looking and clicking. Below are some of the tools that can provide visual insights into user engagement, which can help website owners enhance content placement, button design, and overall layout.

  • Heatmap: This provides visual representations of user activity on a page. Red areas indicate high activity (e.g., clicks, scrolls, and hovers), while blue areas indicate less activity. Heatmaps help you understand visual hierarchy and discover if users are interacting with intended elements or getting distracted by non-clickable items.
  • Click map: Such maps show where users are clicking on a page, which is invaluable for identifying broken links, overlooked CTAs, or elements users are attempting to click but are not interactive.
  • Scroll map: This indicates how far down a page users have scrolled. If important information or CTAs are below the fold (i.e., the visible part of the page without scrolling), a low scroll depth indicates they may have been missed.

Session Recordings

Imagine watching a video of a user’s entire journey on your website—mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, and even form submissions. Session recordings make this possible, although website administrators must implement strong data privacy and security mechanisms alongside this technique.

That said, session recordings offer qualitative insights into individual user experiences, revealing points of frustration, answering questions like:

  • Are users repeatedly clicking noninteractive elements?
  • Are they struggling to fill out forms?

They also reveal unexpected journeys, allowing you to determine if users are navigating your site in ways you didn’t anticipate. Usability issues also come to the fore, revealing if some elements are too small to click or the text is difficult to read.

While reviewing every session isn’t feasible, watching a selection of anonymized recordings, especially for users who experienced issues or abandoned a process, can uncover crucial usability problems that quantitative data may miss.

Web Design Improvement Based on User Interaction: Sample Scenario

After gathering insights from different user behavior monitoring and analytics tools, it’s time to make a decision. Here is a sample scenario illustrating how to improve your web design based on user interaction.

Low Scroll Depth and High Exit Rate 

Web analytics reveal a high exit rate on a specific product page, accompanied by scroll maps indicating that most users only scroll approximately 30–40% down the page. Session recordings reveal that users quickly scan the top portion and then leave.

Additionally, an exit-intent pop-up offering a small discount or recommending related products on this page shows a very low conversion rate, suggesting users are disengaged before the pop-up even appears so users can determine their relevance.

One way to interpret these user interactions is that users are likely not able to find crucial information, such as prices, features, and customer reviews, within the first few seconds. This leads them to abandon the website immediately. Web design improvements that can help address this issue include:

  • Relocate the pricing and add-to-cart button: Move these elements to more prominent positions, that is, directly within users’ initial view and keep them visible as they scroll.
  • Integrate trust signals: Place key trust signals, such as average star ratings, a snippet of a compelling customer review, or a money-back guarantee seal, near the product image or buy button.
  • Change the pop-up strategy or content: Instead of a generic discount offer, test an exit-intent pop-up that directly addresses a common concern or offers a highly relevant lead magnet related to the product if users aren’t ready to buy but are perhaps looking for more information.

Conclusion

Like almost all things in the digital world, websites should continue to adapt and change based on what’s happening. One critical factor that should dictate website design is how users behave while on the site, so that they will stay longer, and website performance can improve.