HEART Metrics
Measure user experience quality across five dimensions — Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, Task success.
Happiness
Track satisfaction through CSAT surveys, NPS, and in-app sentiment signals. Instrument post-transaction moments and support interactions. Target: CSAT ≥ 4.2 / 5.
Engagement
Measure depth of interaction — sessions per user per week, core action frequency, time spent in key workflows. Segment by cohort to detect power-user patterns.
Adoption
Count new users who reach a defined activation milestone within 7 days. Activation is product-specific — first export, first dashboard share, first automation run.
Retention
Weekly or monthly return rate. Define "active" narrowly — a user who performed a core action, not just opened the app. Watch Day-7 and Day-30 retention curves.
Task Success
Efficiency and error rate for critical flows. Time-on-task, completion rate, and error count per attempt. Use funnel analysis to find drop-off points.
Implementation tip
Start with two dimensions — Happiness and Task Success. Instrument one flow end-to-end before expanding. Ship a dashboard that updates daily and make it visible to the whole team.