Interactive Path Flows

Learn about Interactive Path Flows.  Note: Interactive Path Flows are supported by Windows and Apple OS desktops, but only when the contributor uses a Chrome browser.

This article applies to: UserTesting 

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

This feature is also available in the Starter edition (beta).

 

On this page:

About Interactive Path Flows Contributor paths Screen steps and Click maps Success screens Friction Detection Path tracking

Sentiment Path and Intent Path AI Insight Summary Summary of interactions: Mobile/tablet touchscreen Summary of interactions: Desktop Sharing insights

 

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About Interactive Path Flows

• Interactive Path Flows (IPFs): Analyze behavioral data from test participants.
• Show how users navigate a web-based experience.
• Ideal for testing website navigation, onboarding flows, content findability, account creation, or multistep experiences.
• Capture navigation data from any site users visit.
• IPFs are generated when contributors perform a task. For more about adding tasks to your test plan, see our Setting up tasks article.
• Example: Track users accessing your site via Google search or compare usability between your site and a competitor’s.

IPFs offer many ways to explore contributor behavior:

• The main diagram summarizes all the paths contributors took.
• Contributor paths show all the interactions and corresponding clips of a single contributor.
• Screen steps and click maps display all contributor interactions on a screen.
• If available on your account, sentiment path and an intent path, visualization features laid on top of the IPF, reveal key sentiments and behaviors related to an individual contributor's web experience.
• If available on your account, a search bar allows you to search for URLs and page titles, as well as sentiments and intents.
• Path tracing, when activated, is a mechanism that highlights the paths that intersect at a particular screen.
• If available on your account, the Instant Insights feature automatically showcases various key findings below the IPF—not only patterns and trends of interest but also anomalous answers to task-based questions.

💡Notes

• IPFs are not generated for app tests.
• To see the Interactive Path Flow , go to the Metrics tab on the test results page:
  
  
• IPFs are only generated if contributors encounter two or more screens during a task and are only available for regular "blank" tasks.
• They will not work for URL tasks, image tasks, metrics, verbal response, and so on.

 

 

Contributor paths

1. To see a single contributor’s path, hover over a username.
   
   Notes:
   
   • Band width reflects the number of participants on a specific path; curves are purely stylistic.
   • Badges mark outliers based on time, effort, or uncommon paths.
2. To follow an individual path screen by screen, click a username.
   
   Note: A contributor’s session videos and metrics related to the session—time, number of screens visited, and number of interactions—are displayed below the diagram. 
   

3. From here, you can take a closer look at an individual contributor’s interactions:

   • To watch a clip of the contributor doing the entire task, click the timer next to the username.
   • To see a list of interactions on each screen, click the drop-down below each video to reveal the list.
   • To show and hide all interactions at once by clicking Expand all or Collapse all.
   • To watch a clip of the contributor’s interaction, click a video screen.
     
     
4. Some accounts allow testing with a large number of contributors. 
   Notes:
   
   • If the data of more than 30 contributors is aggregated into an IPF, the contributors' usernames are collapsed.
   • Hover over any of the horizontal lines in the left-hand column to show the username and badge linked to that contributor, and to highlight the contributor’s path.
5. For contributors who take unusual paths (i.e. paths that deviate from what most contributors had taken), curved lines appear in the visualization.
   
   Notes:
   
   • Hover over the list of contributor usernames, found in the vertical column on the left side, to reveal the corresponding paths.
   • If you want to test with larger groups of contributors, but your account does not allow it, contact your Customer Success Manager.

 

 

Screen steps and Click maps

1. Hover over the screen steps to see which screens contributors visited at each step.
   Notes:
   
   • Screen steps are represented by the vertical bars appearing within the IPF.
   • The longer these steps are from top to bottom, the more contributors visited that screen.
   • A shorter screen step indicates screens that fewer contributors visited. 
2. To view a Click map and table showing interactions on an individual screen, click the screen step.
   
   A table listing all contributor interactions with the screen is displayed next to the click map. 
   
3. To view the video of a contributor's interaction, click the Play button.
   
   💡 Tip: When you watch the interaction video, you can add a note, make a clip, review the transcript, and see suggested tags, just as you can in the video player.
   

 

 

Success screens

1. To mark success screens to highlight important screens visited by contributors, click the screen step to identify all the users who visited a screen.
   
2. Then, to trace paths that intersect a series of screens, hover over each screen step and select Mark success screen in the pop-up.
   
   💡Note: When you mark success screens, other users in your workspace can see them.
3. To trace a single contributor's path, select a username.
   
4. Alternatively, you can make success screens in the click map table that appears below the IPF.
   
5. To turn off the success screen, select Unmark success screen either in the pop-up or click map table.
   

💡Note: If you're on the Ultimate subscription plan, any success screens you define also appear in instant insights at the top of the Metrics tab.

 

 

Friction Detection

• Friction detection offers insight into where contributors had difficulty interacting with websites or prototypes during tests.
• Use friction detection to quickly identify where you may want to make changes to improve your user experience.
• While tags/insights tasks rely on what customers are saying, friction detection relies more on what they are doing. For example, clicking multiple times and a lot of scrolling.
  💡Please note: Friction detection is available on the Ultimate edition of the Flex plan and the Premium edition of the Seat-Based plan.

 

 

Path tracing

1. Switch on the Path tracing toggle.
   
2. To trace all the paths that intersect a single screen, click the screen step.
   
3. To trace paths that intersect a series of screens, click each screen step.
   
   💡 Tip: Path tracing highlights paths that intersect selected screens, allowing you to identify success paths and visualize where other paths branch off.
4. To trace a single contributor’s path, select a username.
   

💡Notes: 

• When you turn off path tracing, paths remain highlighted; to remove the highlighting, turn path tracing back on and click the screen steps or username again.
• If you navigate away from the page, your highlights are removed automatically. 

 

 

Sentiment path and Intent path

• If available on your account, the sentiment path and intent path features can be turned on to display visual patterns laid on top of the IPF, each corresponding to the sentiment and behavior of individuals who completed the task.

1. Select the Sentiment tab to see positive (green) and negative (red) sentiments for each individual to understand their reactions as they navigated the web experience. 
   
2. Select the Intent tab to see the behaviors—such as browsing or adding an item to the cart—individuals exhibited while on their customer journey.
   
   💡Note: This feature will show you what people clicked on or engaged with so as to advance to a new screen.

 

 

AI Insight Summary 

• The AI insight summary feature is available if you have multiple completed sessions that included verbal tasks and blank tasks that generated Interactive Path Flows.
• This capability processes the task results through our data pipeline to identify themes, patterns, and correlations across multiple types of data.
  

 

 

Summary of interactions: Mobile/tablet touchscreen

• Interactive Path Flows are available on both iOS and Android and are generated for mobile tests of websites.
• Testing mobile apps will not generate Interactive Path Flows.
• Prototypes of mobile experiences will generate Interactive Path Flows if those prototypes are web-based.
• Interactive Path Flows are not captured when you use a native browser for a mobile test. 

Which specific Interactive Path Flow mobile interactions are included/not included?

The following mobile interactions are included in Interactive Path Flows:

• Tap
• Scroll and pan
• Text input

The following mobile interactions are not included in Interactive Path Flows:

• Pinch
• Rotate
• Long press
• Drag
• Android's back button
• Swipe
• iOS flick-close

 

 

Summary of interactions: Desktop

• Interactive Path Flows are supported by Windows and Apple OS desktops, but only when the contributor uses a Chrome browser.
• This includes prototypes that you point contributors to via the URL task found under Assets in the Test plan area. 
• Mobile app tests do not yet support Interactive Path Flows on desktops.

Which specific Interactive Path Flow desktop interactions are included and not included?

The following desktop interactions are included in Interactive Path Flows:

• Left- or main click
• Right- or secondary click
• Third-button click
• Text input
• Scroll and pan

The following desktop interactions are not included in Interactive Path Flows:

• Other Apple gestures

 

 

Sharing insights

Option 1

Select Share from the Results page of your test to generate a test link to share with anyone (if that option is available on your account), or email the test to logged-in team members directly from the UserTesting Platform.

💡Note: This method will share the entire test, not just the IPF. 

 

Option 2

Export test results to an Excel file by selecting Export to Excel under Options.

Notes:

• The IPF visualization will not show up in your export.
• The export will display IPF data for specific contributors, such as "Time on task," "Clicks," "Pages," and "Unique pages."
• This method will export all of the test results details—details from the Sessions, Metrics tabs—and notes and clips marked as "Important" and tagged with positive or negative sentiment.

 

Option 3

Take a screenshot of the IPF visualization and share it with your team as an image file.

 

 

Related content

Want to learn more? Check out these Knowledge Base articles...  Analyze and share results: Best Practices Path Filter Instant insight	Interested in growing your skills? Check out our University courses... How to use Interactive Path Flows Introduction to UserTesting metrics 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.