Journal · September 2025
Instrumentation gaps that kill mobile path work
Mobile Path Analysis for App Users dies in three recurring places. First, OS sheets (photos, notifications, tracking, payments) fire no product event. Second, the process is killed in the background and the next open looks like a new person. Third, a single “interaction” or “screen_view” event is asked to represent every tap.
None of these is a visualisation problem. Sequence Lab spends a whole evening on enumerated outcomes for permission dialogs. Students from GB banking apps often already know the legal constraint; they still lack a named result for “user dismissed” versus “system blocked.”
Background kills need a documented stitching rule, not optimism. If you cannot join sessions, write that in the brief. Inventing continuity so a sankey looks complete is how teams ship the wrong fix.
If you recognise the single-event firehose, start with Module 01 of the User Path Mapping Studio rather than buying another replay seat.