Intent path

Intent path is an interactive visualization that groups specific customer behaviors, based on that individual's intent. It is overlaid on the Interactive Path Flow (IPF) and evaluates the web elements users engage with using UserTesting's proprietary machine-learning models.

 

This article applies to: UserTesting 

 

On this page:

• About intent path
• How it works
• Share insights
• Best practices

 

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About Intent path

Intent path is available on the following subscriptions:

Flex plan	Seat-based plan
Essentials	Startup
Advanced	Professional
Ultimate ✓	Premium ✓

 

• Intent path identifies over 100 common intents and behaviors, such as content consumption, navigation, authentication, and cart management.
• Users can also assign custom intents to customize the visualization as necessary.
• Use the intent path feature to dig deeper into the customer journey to better understand their decisions.
• Observe a single individual and draw insights about their behaviors as they progress through a web experience, including web-based prototypes, mobile apps, and webpages.

• The color-coded overlays represent one of over 100 behaviors based on what individuals clicked on or engaged with to move to a new screen. Here are some of the intent categories captured:

  Consumption	Placing order	Navigation	Collaboration
  Comparison	Authentication	Connection	Attach
  Help & settings	Create & modify	Finish & save	Organization

 

 

How it works

Where to find it

1. Open the Metrics tab of your test.
2. Locate the task that generated the Interactive Path Flow.
3. Select the Intent tab to see an overlay grouping and summarizing the behavior of each participant who took the test.
   

 

Edit the intent label

1. Hover over a particular (color-coded) intent to see a thumbnail of that particular screen and the number of individuals who interacted with it.
2. Edit the label if the detected intent is incorrect or needs to be refined.
   

 

Watch clips

1. Click on an intent to bring up a click map for that screen below the Interactive Path Flow diagram.
2. Watch clips for particular individuals completing the task.
   

 

View a participant's path

1. Click on an individual’s username on the intent path.
2. View the screens that person went through, including tags for each of the recognized behaviors.
3. Dive into video segments of the entire task where the individual clicked or engaged with the screen.
   

 

Search for specific intents

If you are on the Advanced or Ultimate edition of the Flex plan, you can filter for intents across all paths using the path filter search bar above the Interactive Path Flow visualization.

 

 

Share insights

There are a couple of ways in which you can share insights from the intent path:

1. Select Share from the results page of your test to generate a test link to share with anyone (if available on your account).

2. Or, email the test to logged-in team members directly from the UserTesting platform. Read more about how to share test results.

   Note: This method will share the entire test, not just the intent path.

3. Another option is to take a screenshot of the intent path visualization and share it with your team as an image file.

 

 

Best practices

• Create clear objectives for individuals when writing your tasks
  • For example, “Find sunglasses that cost less than 20 Euros”).
  • Random exploration of a web experience will not yield as useful an Interactive Path Flow diagram. 
• Include multiple steps in your tasks that touch on common behaviors in the customer journey. For example:
  

  1. Register for an account.

  2. Log in to your account.

  3. Browse for [specific item].

  4. Add item to the cart.

  5. Go to the checkout. 

• Intent path can also be very helpful for competitive analysis when trying to understand how users complete similar tasks on competing websites.
• Testing prototypes work well as long as you’re using a web-based prototyping solution with unique URLs for each experience.
• Consider your sample size and what you want to learn. Having more unique paths can reinforce the patterns you are seeing or provide more behaviors to analyze. 

 

 

Related content

Want to learn more? Check out these Knowledge Base articles...  Interactive Path Flows Sentiment path	Interested in growing your skills? Check out our University courses... How to use Interactive Path Flows Master class: Expedited analysis
Need hands-on training? Find a live, virtual class that fits your needs. Enroll in one of our UserTesting certification programs.	Can't find your answer? Check out our CommUnity forums. Reach out to Support or our Professional Services team.

 

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