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Cover image for Why We Built Viewlytics — Fixing UI Blind Spots in React Native Apps
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Why We Built Viewlytics — Fixing UI Blind Spots in React Native Apps

#reactnative #mobile #startup #javascript

When building mobile apps, we all obsess over UX: performance, navigation, onboarding flows.

But there’s one layer that often slips through the cracks — what your users are actually seeing on their screens.

Not just what you think they’re seeing in your Figma files or what the simulator tells you — but the real thing, on real devices, in the wild.

That’s why we built Viewlytics.

The Problem

We use tools like Mixpanel or LogRocket to analyze user behavior.

They tell us where users drop off, which features they engage with, and how they flow through our apps.

But they don’t tell us why.

  • What if that drop-off happens because a button was hidden off-screen?
  • What if a modal looks perfect on your Pixel 7 but breaks on a Galaxy S10?
  • What if an important CTA is clipped in Japanese or Arabic?

These are visual bugs, and they’re surprisingly hard to catch — especially in React Native apps where device and screen variation is huge.

We were tired of chasing down screenshots from users or manually running our app on 5 devices just to test edge cases. So we built a tool to do that work for us.

Enter Viewlytics

Viewlytics captures real screenshots from real devices during real user sessions — securely and automatically.

We built it so you can:

  • See exactly what your users saw, when they took an action.
  • Filter by device, OS, language, screen size, and orientation.
  • Flag weird behavior early — even before your users notice.

And we layered in AI detection to help highlight things like:

  • Text getting cut off
  • Components overlapping
  • Layout shifts after rendering

Basically, we’re trying to bring the same observability we get from logging and metrics — but for your visual UI.

Quick Example

Say a user taps a button and nothing happens.

You check your logs — no errors.

But when you look at the screenshot, you realize… the button was off-screen.

That one insight just saved you 3 hours of debugging.

How It Works

1. Install the SDK

In your React Native project, install the Viewlytics SDK:

npm install react-native-viewlytics
# or if you’re using yarn:
yarn add react-native-viewlytics
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2. Initialize the SDK

Initialize the SDK at the entry point of your app:

import Viewlytics from ‘react-native-viewlytics’;

Viewlytics.init("YOUR_SDK_KEY");
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💡 You can get your SDK key from the Viewlytics dashboard after signing up.Who’s It For?

3. Capture Screenshots 

Viewlytics.captureScreen("login_screen");
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You can tag important screens or user actions to get full visibility into what your users actually see.

Viewlytics.captureScreen("sign_up_button_pressed");
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4. Review in the Dashboard

All captured screens appear in your dashboard, where you can:

  • Filter by OS, device, screen size, locale, orientation
  • Spot layout issues like cut-off text or misaligned components
  • Flag and comment on bugs
  • Collaborate with your team in a kanban-style board

AI-Powered Visual Analysis

Image description
Screenshots are great — but Viewlytics goes a step further by using AI to automatically scan and surface potential issues, so you don’t have to inspect every screen manually.

Here’s what the AI looks out for:

  • Text Clipping: Detects when labels or button text are being cut off, especially in languages with longer words.
  • Overlapping Elements: Flags UI components that are rendered on top of each other — often missed in testing.
  • Off-Screen Elements: Spots buttons or forms that are partially or fully outside the visible screen area. The AI engine runs in the background as screenshots are uploaded, highlighting potential visual bugs for your review — and helping your team fix UI issues before your users even notice.

No need to configure anything — it just works once the SDK is integrated.

Who’s It For?

We made this for teams who actually care about polish:

  • Designers who want pixel-perfect consistency
  • Engineers tired of mystery UI bugs
  • QA testers who want better visibility
  • Founders who want a smooth UX but can’t test on 15 devices

Try It Out

Viewlytics is live at viewlytics.ai, and we’re shipping updates constantly. If you want to go deeper, the full docs are here: docs.viewlytics.ai.

We’ve got a free tier with no credit card required, and if you have feedback, I’d genuinely love to hear it.

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