Measuring Usage Is Only the Beginning
- Ambitious Mission Statements, Misaligned Execution
- How I Created the Impact Mindset
- Overuse of Usage Metrics as Success Criteria
- How Grand Ambitions Became Usage Obsessions
- The Pitfalls of Solely Prioritizing Usage
- Measurements of Success Beyond Usage and Usability
- Comprehensive Approach to Metrics for Your Team
- Chapter Recap
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
Take a deep breath. We are going to start our exploration of measuring the success of a product . . . with the heavy stuff. Imagine you are in a situation where customer churn is growing, and you cannot understand why. Even worse, the customer acquisition costs outweigh the money they bring in over their lifetime with the company. You look to your product analytics dashboards—you are hitting your application usage goals, and your net promoter score (NPS) is in the green, but customers are still leaving to your competitors. What do you do?
If you have been here, you are among the 71 percent of product builders who are unsure of how to understand the behaviors of users; you know the feeling of “flying a plane without all the instruments”—in other words, not having the correct data to resolve your biggest problems. This book reimagines the definition of product success by focusing on the behaviors that a product changes and the subsequent impact the product has on user and business outcomes. By offering a process to measure the impact a feature makes on user behaviors and outcomes, this book aims to put you on the path to positive customer experiences and a proven method to boost long-term business outcomes. You will be empowered to evangelize the measurement of impact that your features create for users, what we will call having an Impact Mindset.
That is all to come, but for now this chapter begins by detailing why situations in which product teams feel unequipped to diagnose and rectify product challenges are all too common. Then it covers how to avoid such situations. Starting at the highest level and moving more tactically, this chapter shows how overreliance on usage statistics leads teams astray.
Ambitious Mission Statements, Misaligned Execution
Are you a frequent social media user or a gamer? If you are, ask yourself what desire you are trying to satisfy when engaging. If not, think about someone you know who can’t seem to take a break from it. What objectives, conscious or subconscious, might they strive to achieve through their constant usage? What initial allure or circumstance prompted them to begin their interaction?
You might be thinking something along the lines of community building, friendship development and maintenance, or entertainment. Even those who have a nuanced, perhaps ambivalent, relationship with these platforms often underscore their perceived social and personal advantages. This perception isn’t by chance; it’s meticulously crafted. Leading digital companies have astutely shaped their brand narratives around aspirational ideals, with mission statements that echo these sentiments. Consider, for instance, Facebook’s mission:
To give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together.
And the beginning of Electronic Arts’ (EA) purpose statement?
At EA, we thrive on outrageous thinking. It’s the fuel that inspires the best games in the world. We are a community of artists, storytellers, technologists and innovators working in one of the most dynamic industries today. We’re building a company that thinks about the player experience at every step . . .
These lofty declarations might elicit skepticism, given the public’s perception of these corporations as being profit driven. The dichotomy lies in the evident chasm between their articulated visions and the onground realities. The prevailing trend, not limited to them but pervasive across the entire tech industry, is an unwavering emphasis on crafting products that prioritize user engagement—often at the expense of user-focused outcomes.