In a region where digital expectations are soaring, you rarely get a second chance.
Markets like the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt boast some of the highest internet and mobile penetration rates in the world. E-commerce is booming, there’s an app for almost everything and digital-first is no longer a “nice-to-have”, it’s a key part of interacting with your key audience.
Just like you wouldn’t revisit a restaurant after three wrong orders or keep an app that locks you out every other login, users won’t stick around for clunky, confusing, or broken digital experiences. When your UX meets and exceeds expectations, conversions rise. When it doesn’t, people silently drop off, without telling you why.
That’s what makes UX so critical. It’s not just about aesthetics, it’s about trust, clarity, and ease of use. This blog dives into the subtle UX issues that are killing your conversion rates and how to spot and fix them with the right data, tools, and mindset.
Complex Interfaces Increase Drop-Off Rates
The average person is estimated to make around 35,000 decisions per day. Don’t let your UI/UX unnecessarily add more decisions than it needs to.
When your interface demands too much thinking, whether it’s dense copy, too many options, or a confusing layout, users hesitate or feel a sense of frustration. This could kill conversions. The simplicity of a site or an app isn’t just about minimalism; it’s about reducing the number of micro-decisions users must make on their journey.
Watch out for: high time-on-page without corresponding conversions, scroll depth drop-offs before CTAs, or form abandonments on key conversion screens.
Users Are Engaging but You Don’t See Conversions
In markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, the issue isn’t trust, it’s experience. According to McKinsey, both countries report high trust in digital platforms but relatively low satisfaction, revealing a significant experience gap.
In fact:
- In Saudi Arabia, 24% of dissatisfied users cited bad user experience or interface, while 26% pointed to a lack of options and another 26% felt the solution didn’t fit their needs.
- In the UAE, 20% of dissatisfied users blamed poor UX, with 24% citing both lack of options and a mismatch with their needs.
If your analytics show users are engaging, such as clicking buttons, visiting key pages, but aren’t converting, the issue might be interaction design. In many cases, users arrive on a page, click through key sections, and then drop off without converting. This is often due to friction points that don’t immediately appear broken, but create uncertainty, confusion, or unmet expectations.
These users are showing up, engaging, and trusting your platform, but they’re not converting, because the experience doesn’t deliver. Whether it’s unclear CTAs, overly complex forms, or lack of personalization, the root cause lies in experience design
Watch out for: rage clicks, click-throughs with no follow-on engagement, or repeated toggling between the same two screens.
HEMOdata recommends: Using session replay tools, like Mixpanel, to visualize these friction points and understand why and where users drop off.
Not Having a Mobile-First Mindset = Missed Opportunities
In mobile-dominant markets like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, mobile is the default. Users expect experiences to be designed for small screens, fast load times, and minimal input friction. When that expectation isn’t met, it leads to lost business.
Mobile-first behaviour is the norm across retail, banking, government services, all the way down to grocery apps. If your user journey works great on desktop but breaks down on mobile, you’re not just creating a UX issue, you’re creating a conversion gap.
What to look for:
- Drop-offs occurring on mobile devices
- Low conversion rates on key pages when accessed from mobile
How to Use Behavioral Data to Find UX Breakdowns
Analytics can tell you what is happening, but behavioral data tells you why. Combine funnel tracking, session replays, heatmaps, and event-based metrics to surface areas where friction is highest.
Platforms like Mixpanel help quantify drop-offs and hesitations in key journeys, combine their session replay functionality to bring qualitative context to user decisions. Together, they allow teams to move from assumptions to evidence.
Watch out for: points where users slow down, go back, or hesitate. These are usually tied to UI or logic breakdowns that aren’t immediately visible in traditional dashboards.
Improving UX with Data-Led A/B Testing
Once you’ve identified where friction exists, you need to validate your solutions. A/B testing lets you experiment with real users: changing copy, layout, sequence, or functionality to test what lifts conversion.
Start with hypotheses based on behaviour (e.g., “removing a step will improve signup completion”). Then design low-effort experiments that test these assumptions.
Tools like Kameleoon allow marketing and product teams to launch and analyze tests in a single, unified platform without any need for heavy engineering support. Over time, this allows for continuous UX improvement grounded in evidence.
How Cross-Functional Teams Build Better UX Together
Product managers define the journey. Designers shape the experience. Data teams validate behaviour. Marketing aligns expectations. UX is the intersection where all of them meet, and it works best when there’s shared ownership.
A Formula 1 team doesn’t win because of the driver alone. While the driver does the heavy lifting, it’s the combined effort of the pit crew, the engineers, the data analysts and the strategists that drive success. Similarly, successful UX comes from collaboration, not silos.
Build rituals that bring your teams together around data: regular funnel reviews, open test plans, and shared metrics dashboards. With a combined and integrated tech stack including a behavioural analytics tool and an experimentation tool, everyone can see what’s working, what’s not working and what needs fixing.
👉 Want help finding your hidden UX gaps? Talk to us. We help teams across the region turn user behaviour into growth.
