HEART Framework Template
Evaluate customer satisfaction and ensure that you are providing real value with the HEART Framework. Measure Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success.
About the HEART Framework template
The HEART framework is a UX framework developed by Google. It turns the often-fuzzy idea of user experience into a set of measurable, actionable metrics, helping your product win new users and keep current active users loyal.
What is the HEART framework?
User experience teams often find it challenging to develop useful metrics for success. It’s an even greater challenge for teams at large companies. You can measure user experience at a small scale through user research, surveys, and focus groups. But as your company grows, your customer base gets too large for these methods to always be reasonable.
Google developed the HEART framework to tackle the problem of quantifying user experience. The HEART framework is a set of user-centered metrics you can use to measure user experience at any scale — then draw on those metrics repeatedly throughout the product development lifecycle.
What does HEART stand for?
HEART stands for Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success.
Happiness is a subjective measure of attitude or satisfaction. It’s often quantified through user surveys and bolstered via case studies.
Engagement measures how much the user interacts willingly with a product. Depending on the product, it can be measured by your number of active users in a day, week, or month or your net promoter score (NPS).
Adoption is the rate of new users gained in each time period, usually monthly.
Retention measures how long each customer remains an active user before dropping off. Churn, the other side of the coin, measures how many active users go inactive each month.
Task Success is either the average time it takes a user to complete a task in your product or the percentage of tasks users successfully complete.
What are goals, signals, and metrics in HEART?
Goals, signals, and metrics are the core of the HEART process. All five areas of the HEART acronym must be connected to a goal, at least one signal, and at least one metric.
A goal is a statement of what you’d like your product to achieve in that area of HEART. It’s important for goals to be general, not defined by existing metrics. Some examples:
Happiness goal: “We want logging into our product to feel relaxing and supportive.”
Engagement goal: “We want users engaging with our app every day.”
Adoption goal: “We want our user base to grow continuously.”
Retention goal: “We want as little churn as possible.”
Task Success goal: “We want to minimize abandoned tasks across all user segments.”
Next, come up with one or more signals for each goal. Signals are signs you can look for to show you whether you’re on track to achieve your goal. Examples might be:
Happiness signals: Positive feedback from with real users, recommendations, few complaints.
Engagement signals: Large amount of user-generated content, users spending more time in the app, users logging in multiple times per day.
Adoption signals: More downloads, new features adopted quickly, paid features generating more revenue.
Retention signals: More subscription renewals, fewer users going inactive.
Task Success signals: Few abandoned tasks, few complaints about time-to-completion.
Finally, decide on metrics you can use to objectively measure each signal. For example:
Happiness metrics: Number of five-star reviews, NPS.
Engagement metrics: Daily/weekly/monthly active users.
Adoption metrics: New users per day/week/month, revenue from paid users.
Retention metrics: Retention rate, churn rate.
Task Success signals: Tasks completed per user, average completion time.
The HEART framework is not prescriptive. You’re free to come up with whatever goals, signals, and metrics make the most sense for your business and product.
How do you create a HEART model?
Start by selecting the HEART framework template. Then follow these steps:
Decide on your scope. Are you evaluating your whole product, certain features, or just one feature?
Get familiar with the template. The five areas are listed at the top of the table. Goals, signals, and metrics run down the left-hand side.
Fill out goals for each column. Brainstorm or with your team to settle on five goals.
Fill out signals. Signals can be either positive (something you want to see) or negative (something you’re on the right track if you don’t see).
Fill out metrics. Pick metrics you can use to quantify each signal.
Alternately, you might choose to come up with goals, signals, and metrics for each column before moving on to the next one. Either approach works!
Once finished, you can share your framework with your team or anyone else who would benefit from seeing the information by sending them the board link.
When should you use the HEART model?
The HEART model is generally used to measure larger scale projects, but it works for any size project or team. Use it whenever you want to ensure you’re making your customers happy and providing them with real value.
What are UX frameworks?
A UX framework is a set of assumptions and steps a team can use to build a user experience. UX frameworks such as HEART also monitor and refine user reactions to a product once it’s already out in the world.
What is a KPI in UX design?
A KPI, or key performance indicator, is a measurable variable a UX team can use to determine how their user interface is performing with customers. In the HEART framework, it’s called a metric. Examples include monthly active users and time to complete tasks.
What is UX tracking?
UX tracking is the act of using tools to follow how users interact with your product. It encompasses a wide range of technology, including website analytics, click-tracking, and A/B testing apps.
How do you use the HEART framework?
The easiest way is to use this free template. Alternatively, create a table and label one axis with Happiness, Engagement, Adoption, Retention, and Task Success. Label the other axis with Goals, Signals, and Metrics. Then, work with your UX team to fill in each cell.
Get started with this template right now.
Empathy Map Template
Works best for:
Market Research, User Experience, Mapping
Attracting new users, compelling them to try your product, and turning them into loyal customers—it all starts with understanding them. An empathy map is a tool that leads to that understanding, by giving you space to articulate everything you know about your customers, including their needs, expectations, and decision-making drivers. That way you’ll be able to challenge your assumptions and identify the gaps in your knowledge. Our template lets you easily create an empathy map divided into four key squares—what your customers Say, Think, Do, and Feel.
App Development Canvas Template
Works best for:
Market Research, Product Management, User Experience
Ever noticed that building a successful app requires lots of players and moving parts? If you’re a project manager, you definitely have. Lucky for you, an app development canvas will let you own and optimize the entire process. It features 18 boxes, each one focusing on a key aspect of app development, giving you a big-picture view. That way you can fine-tune processes and get ahead of potential problems along the way—resulting in a smoother path and a better, tighter product.
Eisenhower Matrix Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Strategic Planning, Prioritization
Have an overwhelming list of to-dos? Prioritize them based on two key factors: urgency and importance. It worked for American president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it can work for you—this decision-making framework will help you know where to start and how to plan your day. With our template, you can easily build an Eisenhower Matrix with a quadrant of key areas (Do, Schedule, Delegate, and Don’t Do) and revisit it throughout the day as your priorities change.
3 Horizons of Growth Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Strategic Planning, Project Planning
Featured in The Alchemy of Growth, this model gives ambitious companies a way to balance the present and the future—in other words, what’s working in the existing business and what emerging, possibly-profitable growth opportunities lie ahead. Then teams across the organization can make sure that their projects map to and support the organization’s goals. The 3 Horizons of Growth model is also a powerful way to foster a culture of innovation—one that values and depends on experimentation and iteration—and to identify opportunities for new business.
The 4-Step Retrospective
Works best for:
Retrospectives, Agile Methodology, Meetings
The 4-Step Retrospective template offers a simple yet effective framework for conducting retrospectives. It provides steps for reflecting on what went well, what didn't go well, what could be improved, and action planning. This template enables teams to systematically review past iterations, identify areas for growth, and implement actionable improvements. By promoting a structured approach to reflection and improvement, the 4-Step Retrospective empowers teams to drive continuous learning and enhancement effectively.
Floor Plan Template
Works best for:
Operations, Workshops
Maybe you’re planning a big occasion or event. Or maybe you’re arranging seating structures and traffic flows that are more permanent. Either way, creating a floor plan—an overhead scaled diagram of the space—is equal parts functional and fun. This template will let you visualize how people will move about the space and know quickly if the space will do what you need, before you commit time, money, or resources. And you’ll be able to get as detailed as you want—finding the right measurements and dimensions, and adding or removing appliances and furniture.