4 Heatmaps — Paths, Attention, Objects Viewed, Issues Overlay

The Context

A 3D architectural visualization tool needed to understand how prospective buyers explored virtual property tours. The platform rendered beautiful environments, but conversion from "viewed tour" to "scheduled showing" was inconsistent.

Session duration varied wildly—some users explored thoroughly; others left within seconds. The team had event logs but no visibility into what users actually saw or where they went inside each property.

The Problem

Traditional analytics showed "session started" and "session ended" with timestamps, but nothing between. Did users see the renovated kitchen? Did they notice the premium finishes? Did they skip the primary bedroom entirely?

Without spatial behavior data, the team was optimizing tours based on what they hoped users experienced rather than what users actually experienced. High-value features might be invisible; low-priority areas might be getting all the attention.

What Gossip Measured

Gossip Analytics provides four distinct heatmap layers, each answering a different question:

• Path Heatmap — Where did users physically move? Shows movement flows, spatial coverage, and navigation patterns. Reveals which areas users explore vs. skip.
• Attention Heatmap — Where did users look? Shows gaze duration and focus areas. Gaze analytics may include real eye-tracking and/or simulated gaze depending on device capabilities.
• Objects Viewed Heatmap — Which specific elements did users actually look at? Shows engagement with individual objects, features, and content.
• Issues Overlay Heatmap — Where did crashes, freezes, or UX breakpoints occur? Ties technical issues to spatial location for faster debugging.

The Insight

68% of users never visually engaged with the kitchen area despite walking past it. The Path Heatmap showed users entered the kitchen zone, but the Attention Heatmap revealed they looked straight through toward the living room.

The kitchen entrance was positioned outside the natural gaze arc during the standard navigation path. Users' eyes never landed on the premium appliances or renovated countertops—the selling points were architecturally invisible.

What Changed

• Repositioned kitchen entrance to align with natural gaze direction during navigation
• Added subtle visual cue (light gradient) to draw attention toward high-value features
• Relocated feature callouts from low-engagement zones to high-attention areas
• Fixed performance issue causing micro-freezes near living room area (identified via Issues Overlay)
• Created "guided tour" mode that follows optimized attention paths

Outcome

• • Increased visual engagement with kitchen area after repositioning
• • More balanced spatial exploration across entire property
• • Faster identification and resolution of UX friction zones
• • Clear before/after metrics for design decisions

Why This Matters

Each heatmap answers a different question. Path tells you where users went. Attention tells you what they focused on. Objects Viewed tells you which elements mattered. Issues Overlay tells you where things broke. Combined, they reveal patterns invisible to single-layer analytics—the gap between "users entered the kitchen" and "users saw the kitchen."

How to Replicate This in Your Project

1. Enable all four heatmap layers in the Gossip SDK
2. Collect sessions across representative user segments
3. Overlay Path and Attention data to identify disconnects (movement vs. focus)
4. Use Objects Viewed to confirm engagement with high-value elements
5. Check Issues Overlay to correlate technical problems with spatial context
6. Prioritize changes based on combined evidence across all layers