What does the mouse path tell you about your flow

When doing user tests I discovered a recurring mouse path among testers. When asking them during a task to go back to the previous screen, the mouse was 'zig zagging'. The mouse went to the main menu first. After that to the close button and finally to the back button. See image below.

In an ideal situation, the mouse path would move straight to its target. That's clearly not the case now. I could be looking too deep into this. Testers were new to the system and hadn't seen it before. I had trouble finding research about mouse paths and what it means.

Is this something to look into more? Can we actively try and improve mouse path flow in our UI?