HEART Framework

I’ve always found that a focus on the user is a fantastic north star to follow when deciding on what types of core metrics or Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) make sense for your app. This is why I particularly enjoy using the HEART framework originally developed at Google which has a primary focus on the user.

The HEART framework breaks down into:

Happiness

The ‘Happiness’ metric is arguably the hardest of the 5 metrics to measure as it can be somewhat subjective and wholly depends on you as the Product Manager in regards to what goes into the metric. In the past, I’ve played with a combination of errors reported in the logs, user surveys, and how quickly a task was completed (or abandoned) during usage of the product. There are lots of ways to craft this metric and my suggestion is to simply try different quantitative methods followed by qualitative to see if you are on the right track. For example, you could track your app store rating as a key driver in your ‘Happiness’ metric and then follow that up with user surveys or interviews along with reading user reviews to see if the app store rating is truly tracking with what users are thinking. One last thing is that the ‘Happiness’ metric is a great one to show on an internal team dashboard (in the form of a smiley face or something like that) as it is a quick motivator for the team as they can quickly see how the app is performing (and who doesn’t love seeing a smiling face?).

Engagement

When discussing ‘Engagement’, we tend to think of user interaction with a product or service. How often are your users returning to your product? What time interval makes sense to track this return rate? Of course, you can get even more granular and focus in on a particular feature or problem area of your product and do a similar sort of tracking in order to see how users are engaging with that item. Personally, I’ve found that the key item to remember when thinking about ‘Engagement’ is that interval that you want to time box a potential interaction. Once you’ve decided on the interval, start testing and see how your data adjusts and always be ready to modify that interval to something that makes sense for your product.

Adoption

‘Adoption’ points towards the number of new users your product is attracting. I will say that this metric can sometimes trend towards what is known as ‘vanity metrics’ (where the metric primarily trends upwards and makes your product look good no matter what else is going on). The reason is that you could simply say adoption is ever increasing without actually giving a timeframe in order to truly understand the rate at which the addition of new users is increasing. As you can see, if you can utilize a time interval then the ‘adoption rate’ can indeed become really valuable. Also, this number can help engineering teams as they can scale the infrastructure of the product accordingly as they see this metric trend upwards.

Retention

How long do your users stick around? ‘Retention’ is a particularly interesting metric to follow. We often hear that people vote with their money when speaking about where money is spent. The same is true in the world of software products, if users are not returning to your product then you need to course correct and figure out why. Was it the last feature you rolled out? Was it a pricing error? Or something else entirely? Be sure to pay close attention to retention rates and talk to your users frequently in order to learn what is working and what isn’t working.

Task Success

When looking at ‘Task Success’ this can sometimes venture into the subjective area if you’re not careful. Be sure to have a clear vision of what your core goal is and focus on that when thinking about the tasks associated with that particular goal. For example, I used to serve as product on a video streaming application and the core function of the app was to play content (seems obvious, right?). Well, in order to zero in on a task success metric it was decided to look at the time it took for a user to start playing a title as a primary task success item. This key piece of data was remarkably critical in that it also fed into the ‘Happiness’ metric above because users that found something to watch more quickly tended to be happier with the product which also resulted in fewer customer support inquiries.

Wrap Up

The HEART framework is a fantastic framework to follow when drafting key metrics for your product (or features within the product). I find that these items also look great on an internal dashboard and can serve as a motivator for the entire product team. I’d highly recommend you give it a shot with your next product.