Rage clicks
Rage clicks are people telling you something’s broken.
Someone clicks a button. Nothing happens. They click again, harder, as if that helps. Every one of those is a small report that your page didn’t do what it promised.
In short
A rage click is a burst of rapid clicks on one spot, usually because the page isn’t responding as someone expects. Maximizii counts three or more clicks within one second, within 30 pixels of each other, and lets you filter any click map down to them.
- The rule
- 3 clicks in 1 second, within 30 px
- Where to see them
- Rage filter on the click map
- Listed by
- Element, with its selector
- Sometimes means
- A slow, broken or misleading element
What usually causes them
Slow responses
The button works, but nothing shows for a second or two, so people click again. Often this also means they submit twice.
Things that look clickable
A badge, a heading or a picture styled like a button. In the sample above, a badge collects 79 clicks with no response.
Broken code
A click handler that failed, or a script that hasn’t loaded yet. These often show on one device or browser only.
Things covered up
An invisible layer, a cookie banner or a sticky bar sitting over the thing people want.
Finding and fixing them
Open the click map and choose Rage
The map and the list narrow to rage clicks, ranked by element.
Check each device
A rage click on a phone often has a different cause, like a tap target that’s too small.
Try it yourself
Click the element with a slow connection turned on in your browser’s developer tools. If you find yourself clicking twice, so will they.
Fix it, and watch the number
Show that something is happening straight away, make the element work, or stop it looking clickable. Then compare the count over the following week.
Not every rage click is a problem
People click repeatedly on purpose too: quantity buttons, carousels, “next” arrows and games. Check what the element does before treating it as a bug. Clicking text to select it is common as well, and text selections don’t count as dead clicks here.
Questions
What is a rage click?
A quick burst of clicks in one place, usually out of frustration when a page doesn’t respond. In Maximizii, that’s three or more clicks within one second and within 30 pixels of each other.
What’s the difference between rage clicks and dead clicks?
A dead click is about the page: it didn’t respond. A rage click is about the person: they clicked repeatedly. They often overlap, but a slow button can get rage clicks without being dead, and a dead link may get only one click.
Are rage clicks bad?
Usually they’re worth a look, but not always. On a quantity stepper or a carousel, repeated clicks are normal use.
Can you get rage clicks on a phone?
Yes, and they’re counted from taps. A touch that’s part of a scroll or a pinch is never counted.
Keep reading
- Dead clicksClicks where nothing happens: why they matter, and how they’re measured.
- Click mapsSee what people click, ranked by element, with labels and selectors.
- How to read a heatmapCheck the sample, read each map in turn, and turn what you see into a change.
- Heatmap examplesFive real heatmaps from a sample shop, and what each one is saying.
- User behavior analyticsWhat it means for a website, the main kinds of tool, and which you need.
- Heatmaps vs session replayWhat each is for, what each costs, and why we built only one of them.
Find out where they click.