---
title: "How to use Heatmaps"
date: "2025-01-10T18:42:07+00:00"
summary: "Discover how to use heatmaps to analyze user behavior, improve website performance, and make data-driven design decisions."
image:
type: "page"
url: "/web-governance/how-use-heatmaps"
id: "59d672f2-0148-4bc9-9043-5c70466139c3"
---

        Table of contents will be added     

Introduction
------------

Heatmaps help you understand how your users interact with your website. With Heatmaps, you can do these actions:

*   View user interactions in a warm-to-cold color scheme to see exactly how your web pages are performing.
*   Get information on how visitors interact with your pages with three different heat map types:
    *   **Move**: Shows where desktop visitors moved across the page with the mouse.
    *   **Click**: Shows the points on the page where visitors tapped or clicked.
    *   **Scroll**: Shows how far visitors scrolled down the page.
*   Identify navigational problem areas so that you can make targeted improvements.
*   Track up to a maximum of 1000 heatmaps sessions per page per month.
*   View heatmaps for three months.

This document provides instructions on how to use Web Governance Heatmaps.

Prerequisites
-------------

Heatmaps is a script-based add-on, only admin users have permissions to set it up and add pages. 

For instructions, read [Heatmaps setup](/web-governance/heatmaps-setup "Heatmaps setup").

Navigation
----------

1.  Log in to your Web Governance account.
2.  Click **Heatmaps** on the main navigation bar.

Landing page
------------

The landing page provides a detailed list of the pages that are tracked with Heatmaps.

View the heatmap
----------------

This section provides instructions on how to view the heatmap on pages that have heatmaps applied to them:

1.  Open the Web Governance Browser Extension and navigate to the page with the heatmap.
    
    For more information, read [Browser Extension setup](/web-governance/web-governance-browser-extension "Web Governance Browser Extension").
    
2.  Click **Heatmaps** (the flame icon) on the extension toolbar.
    
    The heatmap may not show much activity when it is first activated, the results begin to appear as external users browse the site.
    
    ![The Heatmaps settings on the Web Browser Extension and a sample Heatmap.](https://acquia.widen.net/content/omszfkewkx/web/Mon_WebBrowserExtension-HeatmapsPage.png?w=720&v=e43db2f6-c5f4-4bef-accb-9824d7560853&itok=VhDuG2wf)
    
3.  Adjust the view settings:
    *   **Display Heatmap**: Toggle the switch to turn the heatmap view **OFF** or **ON**.
    *   **Device Type**: Select the type of device to track:
        *   Mobile
        *   Tablet
        *   Desktop
    *   **Heatmap Type**: Select the type of heatmap to view:
        *   **Move**: This type of heat map shows where visitors move their cursor and where they linger on the page. This allows website owners to see where important content such as CTAs and advertisements should be placed for optimal impact. This type of heat map also gives the ability to identify areas that visitors tend to skim over.
        *   **Click**: This type of heat map shows where visitors tap or click on the pages. This allows website owners to track clicks on links, images, and CTAs, and to identify navigational gaps that do not match visitor expectations.
        *   **Scroll**: This type of heat map shows how far visitors scroll down on the pages, which can help you calculate the ideal length of a webpage, identify if visitors reach the content placed below the fold, and see if the page has a false floor. It also allows you to identify where visitors spend most of their time on the page and where they lose interest.
    *   **Snapshot time**: Click to define the time period snapshot for heat map activity. The selections are:
        *   Last week
        *   Last month
        *   Last quarter

Heatmaps reports
----------------

The available reports for heatmaps are:

*   HTML Pages Inventory report
*   Documents Inventory report
*   Links Inventory report

For more information, visit [Heatmaps reports](/web-governance/heatmaps-reports "Heatmaps reports").

Additional resources
--------------------

For setup instructions for Admin users, read [Heatmaps setup](/web-governance/heatmaps-setup "Heatmaps setup").