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ONE TURN DESERVES ANOTHER

The cat entered our household long after the dog

— Jonathan Safran Foer “Why does watching a dog be a dog fill one with happiness?” In times of uncertainty, watching videos about dogs on social media can be relaxing. It helps take your mind off the current crisis. At least for a short time. Yes, the content can be silly and childish. But I like it. I must have watched 500 dog videos over the last couple of weeks. However, there is one sub-genre that I find particularly annoying. The videos in which dogs are dressed as human beings. I don’t know why, but they really irritate me. We should not force dogs into behaving like human beings. There is much we can learn from dogs . And here I don’t refer to the ability to enjoy the present moment and be genuinely happy. No, I am talking about their “leadership skills” in times of crisis. So, let me share my experience of how our dog has become an effective leader in a work-from-home environment. if we just let them be dogs A Dog’s Life Dogs and humans have always been a perfect match. Humans living together with dogs goes back for thousands of years. Dogs complete us. They can assist with hunting. They help farmers with herding and guarding livestock. Our property is safer when they are around to provide protection. And they can offer the necessary assistance to people in need. Over time our relationship with dogs evolved and deepened. Dogs have become a man and a woman’s “best friend.” Companionship. Loyalty. Honesty. Unconditional Love. Let’s be honest. Most of us find it extremely difficult to hold back our tears when something happens to a “Hollywood” dog. Marley and Me, starring a Labrador retriever, made it into the “ ” list in 2010. And I still get upset about Robert Neville (Will Smith) being forced to kill his own dog (Samantha) in the action thriller . twenty films that make men cry I Am Legend I also find the scenes with dogs the most enjoyable parts of the many reality shows that are being aired on TV. Even though I am not a big fan of reality TV, I have a deep respect for the fantastic work of the K-9s in Live PD and all the dogs in the border-security shows. I even saw an that scientists in the UK are investigating whether dogs might be trained to recognize coronavirus. article When I am with our dog, I feel comfortable. At ease. Let’s call it a Zen moment. She helps me put things in perspective, to worry less about the past and the future, and enjoy the simple beauty of life. When I come home from work, the dog is already waiting for me in front of the window. Her enthusiastic greetings give me a burst of energy. And walking her is never an inconvenience. Sun, snow or rain. Going out with her is always fun. Our dog is a female Weimaraner named Toba. We named her after a Japanese city. We visited the town during our honeymoon. We picked her up when she was still a puppy in December 2009. I will never forget how my wife and I spend our Christmas time toilet training our new puppy. Also, we were swamped, making sure that our furniture would survive the arrival of our new family member. I loved Toba but believed that the days of “working from home” and being productive were over. She was extremely distractive. You couldn’t ignore her. No way. She wanted to be the center of attention. My wife had high hopes of going to obedience school with her. I only joined them a few times. I couldn’t watch it anymore. Let’s say that we had mixed results. Eventually, we concluded that it was better to let our dog be a dog. And here we are, more than ten years later. Our dog has become an indispensable part of our family. Recently, lots has changed in a very short amount of time. Will the world ever be the same? I am now in my third week of working-from-home. One thing hasn’t changed though, our dog still behaves like a puppy. She is so much more than our best friend. And, surprisingly, she doesn’t keep me from work. The opposite, she makes sure that I am as productive as possible during these difficult times. Our Dog & Leadership But, most of all, I admire and appreciate Toba’s leadership skills. She has quickly developed into the leader you need in uncertain times. When working from home, it is difficult to manage time. But our dog helps bring structure in our days. She forces us to have a schedule. Wake up early. Get dressed. Stand up (don’t sit the whole day) and take regular breaks. Our dog lets me work for several hours but understands that a structured way of working improves my focus and productivity. She understands that a workday is all about maintaining balance. Coordinator. Our dog is also inspiring. She keeps my spirits up and helps me develop a workout routine. She has a built-in alarm that helps you do your exercise and go out for a run or walk. But there is so much more than that. She knows that playing with her keeps you fresh and creative. Her inquisitive and curious mind encourages you to also be creative yourself. Her optimism and enthusiasm remind me that there is always a solution to a problem. Inspirator. She is an excellent communicator and doesn’t need a lot of words. You know precisely what is expected from you (just by looking at her). And here I am not only talking about her own needs and desires (eat, sleep, walk, play, repeat). She is also a fantastic listener. When you are frustrated (after a long and tedious telephone conference or video call), you can just let your frustrations go. She will listen. I even have the feeling that she has a pretty good sense of what’s going on. She shows genuine emotion and offers a “shoulder” to cry on. Communicator. And then she is a distractor. I know this sounds bad but is actually a great and necessary “leadership” skill in stressful times. After three weeks, some people start to feel isolated. There are also several moments during a day that there is simply a lack of motivation. When you are again notified by some devastating and terrible news, your work simply doesn’t make any sense. All of a sudden what you are doing isn’t that important. Our dog then immediately steps in and puts things in perspective, reduces stress, and gives me the energy to continue. Distractor. A good leader understands that it is crucial to take the pressure off in times of crisis. Well, when we need a good laugh, our dog is there for us. She is simply a lot of fun — also when you work from home. Whenever I have a telephone conference or video conference, she is there by your side. And she is usually not silent. Comedian. It might sound weird, but, particularly, when specific difficult comments are made during the many virtual meetings, she starts barking, making the discussion more lighthearted. Dogs & the Future of Work The way we work has rapidly changed over the last decade. Traditional “offices” disappeared and were replaced by open office spaces. Now working remotely and working from home are becoming the new normal (and this will not disappear immediately in the post-coronavirus world). The role of dogs is also evolving. We will see more dogs in the future of work. Before the crisis, there were already examples of dogs becoming more critical in the workspace. I remember a venture capital firm that had a dog as a “chief happiness officer.” Also, “bring your dog to work day” has been quite successful within my company. What is ironic is that in the digitizing world of remote work, most people don’t want to stay at home when dogs are in the office. And I am convinced that dogs don’t only offer benefits to the employees. They are also a source of inspiration for business leaders and managers who have to make sure that companies remain relevant in the near to long-term future. Think about it. In times of crisis, we need authentic leaders. Traditional wartime leaders, “control-freaks,” and micromanagers don’t solve the problems we are facing today. We don’t need leaders who issue specific orders and don’t offer their workers a significant degree of autonomy in finding the optimal solution. We need a different kind of leader. Future leadership is about stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. It is not about “command and control.” Over the last three weeks, our dog showed me the benefits of a “context-driven” approach to leadership. Future leadership is about being open, transparent, and honest. It is about stimulating entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. It is about building a work environment that continuously puts things in perspective, gives you energy, and helps you overcome the most challenging problems. There is so much to learn from our four-legged friends.

Leadership Lessons from a Dog in Uncertain Times

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE FARMER’S HELPERS (Continued) CHAPTER LXII. THE FARMER’S HELPERS (Continued) “The hedge-hog’s diet consists especially of insects. The lowest order of vermin is disdained by him as too small, but a June-bug larva or a fat-bellied cricket is a capital prize, and when these are not too deeply buried he burrows with claws and snout to unearth them. All night long he goes prowling around, routing out and crunching a goodly number of our enemies, without doing any appreciable harm himself. “Listen now to what I am going to relate to you from the book of a learned observer. ‘I had in a box,’ he says, ‘a female hedge-hog with her sucklings; and I added to the occupants of the box a vigorous viper, which coiled itself up in one corner. The hedge-hog slowly approached and smelt of the reptile, whereupon the latter raised its head and put itself on guard, showing the while its venomous fangs. For a moment the aggressor recoiled, but only to resume the offensive immediately after and with no sign of fear. The viper then bit the animal on the end of its snout. The hedge-hog licked its bleeding wound, and in doing so received a second bite on the tongue without suffering itself to be at [ ]all intimidated. Finally it seized the serpent by the middle of its body, and the two adversaries rolled together on the floor in a furious struggle, the quadruped grunting and snorting, the reptile hissing and making repeated use of its fangs. Suddenly the hedge-hog seized its antagonist’s head and crunched it between its teeth, after which, without the least sign of perturbation, it proceeded to devour the forward half of the body. That done, it returned to the opposite corner of the box and, lying on its side, calmly began to suckle its young. On the morrow it ate the rest of the viper. The same experiment was several times repeated, with an interval of some days between each repetition and the next, but the issue was always the same: in spite of wounds that set its snout to bleeding, the hedge-hog invariably finished by devouring the reptile, and neither the mother nor her young showed any ill effects from the experience.’ 349 “It is to be assumed that the hedge-hog has not received the gift of withstanding the venom of reptiles only to leave that gift unemployed. The animal is evidently intended to find its chief pleasure in haunting the places frequented by the viper; in its nightly rounds among the underbrush it must often catch the lurking serpent and make short work of the venomous creature. What valuable service it must render in regions infested by this dangerous reptile! And yet man is the hedge-hog’s inveterate foe, showering it with maledictions and treating it as an unclean beast good for nothing except perhaps [ ]to arouse the fury of dogs, which have to beware of its bristling back. Do not, my children, imitate this evil example, but respect the hedge-hog for ridding you of the cut-worm and the viper. 350 “Now as to the mole, what does it eat? The best way to decide the question of an animal’s diet is to examine the contents of its stomach. Let us, then, open the mole’s stomach and see for ourselves. Sometimes it is found to contain red fragments of the common earth-worm; sometimes a hash of beetles, recognizable from the tough remains that have resisted digestion, such as bits of claws and wing-sheaths; sometimes, again, and oftener than not, a marmalade of larvæ, especially those of the June-bug, with their distinctive signs like the mandibles and the hard casing of the head. One finds, in short, a little of every sort of game haunting the soil,—polypods and millepeds, insects and caterpillars, moths in the chrysalis, underground worms and nymphs, and so on; but the minutest scrutiny fails to discover a single particle of vegetable matter. “The mole, then, is exclusively carnivorous, and furthermore it has a monstrous appetite, a perfectly insatiable stomach that in twelve hours demands a quantity of food equal to the animal’s weight. The mole’s existence is one gluttonous frenzy, ever renewing itself, never appeased; a few hours’ abstinence suffices to kill the creature. To still the anguish of that stomach, which is no sooner stuffed with food than it is emptied again, what can the animal count upon? On the grubs living in the ground, [ ]and especially on those of the June-bug, tender and fat. It is a small creature for supplying the wants of such an appetite, but its numbers make up for its littleness. What a massacre of worms, then, must not the mole be credited with in the season when worms abound! Scarcely is one meal finished before another begins, and at each repast the worms must be gobbled up by the dozen. To clear a field of these formidable ravagers the farmer has no helper equal to the mole. The only regret is that to reach the vermin on which the animal lives, it has to burrow among the roots where they have their haunts. Many roots that lie in the way are necessarily ruptured in this work; plants are broken off and destroyed; and, finally, the little piles of earth, or mole-hills, heaped up by the animal in the course of its excavations, impede the reaper when harvest-time comes around. Never mind: the worms would have caused much more serious damage, and to get rid of them there is nothing like this ravenous insect-hunter. Therefore, children, never molest the mole, the protector of our crops. 351 “The toad is harmless, but that is not enough to commend the creature to our attention. It too is a helper of great worth, a greedy devourer of slugs, beetles, larvæ, and every sort of vermin. Discreetly withdrawn by day under the cool cover of a stone in some obscure hole, it leaves its retreat at nightfall to make its regular rounds, propelling itself, hoppity-hop, on its ample stomach. Here is a slug on its way to the lettuce-plants; yonder is a cricket chirping [ ]at the entrance to its hole; and over there a June-bug is laying its eggs in the ground. Master toad comes along in circumspect fashion, opens his cavernous mouth, and in three gulps swallows them all with a gurgle of satisfaction. Oh, but that was good! Now for some more of the same sort. 352 Common American Toad “He continues on his rounds, and when dawn begins to glimmer in the east what kind of a hodge-podge of variegated vermin must there not be in the glutton’s capacious maw? Yet they kill this useful creature—stone it to death because, forsooth, it is not so handsome as it might be. My children, may you never be guilty of such cruelty, such foolish and mischievous cruelty! Never stone the toad, for in doing so you would be robbing the fields of a vigilant guardian. Let the poor creature perform in peace its appointed task as destroyer of worms and insects. “Finally, and not least of all, must be mentioned the various birds, chiefly the little birds of our fields and farm-yards, that help the farmer by devouring harmful insects and the seeds of wild grasses and intrusive weeds. These indefatigable assistants, however, we have already discussed, and we have gratefully acknowledged our indebtedness to them. [ ]No more, then, need be said about them at present, except in the way of renewed admonition never to molest them, never to rob their nests; for they are our friends and benefactors.” 353 About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE FARMER’S HELPERS (Continued)

Field, Forest and Farm by Jean-Henri Fabre, is part of the HackerNoon Books Series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here . THE FARMER’S HELPERS CHAPTER LXI. THE FARMER’S HELPERS “By ‘helpers’ I here mean those animals and birds that come to our aid, though not subject to our care and protection, and make war on the insects and divers other devourers that would soon get complete control of our crops if we were left to our own resources for preventing their excessive multiplication. What could man do against those voracious hordes that annually propagate their kind at a rate defying calculation? Would he have the patience, the skill, the keenness of eyesight necessary for effective warfare upon the smallest of these marauders when the June-bug, despite its size, mocks at our utmost efforts to exterminate it? Would he undertake to examine all his fields, a clod at a time, to inspect his grain, ear by ear, to scrutinize his fruit trees, one leaf after another? For so prodigious a task the combined efforts of the whole human race would not suffice. The devouring hosts would eat us up, my friends, if we had no helpers to come to our rescue, helpers endowed with a patience that nothing can weary, an adroitness that baffles all wiles, a vigilance from which there is no escape. To lie in wait for the enemy, to seek him in his remotest retreats, to pursue him without pause or rest, and finally to exterminate him, that is their sole concern, their incessant preoccupation. They are implacable, pitiless; hunger urges them on, both for their ow Adder, or Viper “As participants in this great work must be named the bat and the hedge-hog, the owl, the martin, the swallow, and all the smaller birds, the lizard, the adder, the frog, and the toad. Praise be to God who has given us as protectors from that glutton, the insect, such birds as the swallow and the warbler, the robin and the nightingale, the martin and the starling. And yet these invaluable creatures, guardians of earth’s bounty, a delight to the eye, a solace to the ear, have their homes pillaged by the barbarous and stupid robber of birds’ nests. Praise be to God who for the protection of our daily bread has given us the owl and the toad, the hedge-hog and the bat, the adder, the lizard and the mole. Nevertheless these useful creatures that come so valiantly to our aid are cursed and calumniated, and we stupidly vent upon them our loathing and hate. Green Lizard of Europe [ ] 344 “By what perversity are we, in general, impelled to destroy animals whose coöperation is so much to our advantage? Nearly all our helpers are persecuted. Their good will must be indomitable to make them bear our ill treatment and not forsake our dwellings and fields, never to return. The bat rids us of a host of enemies, and is nevertheless under the ban; the mole clears the soil of vermin, and is likewise proscribed; the hedge-hog wages war on vipers and cut-worms, and it too is an outlaw; the owl and various other night birds are accomplished rat-hunters, and they also are in disfavor; the adder, toad, and lizard feed on the ravagers of our crops, and all the while we hold them in abhorrence. They are ugly, we say, and without further reason we kill them. But, blind slayers, the day will come when you will perceive that you have been sacrificing your own defenders to an irrational repugnance. You complain of rats, but you nail the owl to your door and let its body dry in the sun as a hideous trophy; you cry out against cut-worms, but you crush the mole every time your spade turns one up; you disembowel the hedge-hog and set your dogs on him just for fun; you bewail the ravages of moth and worm in your granaries, but if the bat falls into your clutches it is seldom that you show him any mercy. Your complaints go up to heaven, but all these willing helpers of yours you treat as creatures accursed. Blind fools that you are, filled with an insane desire to kill! “Insect-eating birds are of immense importance to agriculture. They divide among themselves the work to be done in field and hedge, meadow and garden, forest and orchard, and wage unceasing warfare on every species of vermin, a terrible tribe that would destroy our crops were not more vigilant guardians than we continually on the watch—guardians of far greater adroitness, of sharper eyesight, of more lasting patience in their endless quest, and having nothing else to do. I am not exaggerating, my little friends; without insect-eating birds famine would decimate us. Who then, unless he be an idiot with a mania for destruction, would dare touch the nests of birds that enliven the country with their plumage and deliver us from the devouring scourge of insects? But there are, nevertheless, bloodthirsty gamins who, if they can manage to elude the school-master and play truant, find it a joyous pastime to climb trees and explore hedges in order to rob birds’ nests and slaughter the young. These good-for-nothings are under the surveillance of the rural guard and liable to the utmost rigors of the law, to the end that our crops may still be protected by the birds and that our fields and orchards may continue to yield sheaves of grain and baskets of fruit. “Let us add a few words on the mode of life of these indispensable collaborators. The bat feeds exclusively on insects, anything in that class serving its purpose,—beetles with hard wing-sheaths, spindle-shanked mosquitoes, graceful butterflies, plump-bellied moths of all kinds, such as make havoc of our cereals, vineyards, fruit trees and woolen stuffs, and [ ]those that come in the evening, attracted by the lamplight, and singe their wings over the flame. Who shall say how many insects are snapped up by the bats in their nightly tour of our premises? The game is so small, the hunter’s appetite so insatiable! 346 Bat “Note what takes place on a calm summer evening. Lured abroad by the mild temperature of the twilight hours, a swarm of insects leave their retreats and come out to play in the open air, to hunt for food, and to mate, one with another. It is then that great night-moths fly abruptly from flower to flower and plunge their long proboscis to the bottom of the corolla, where they suck up the honey; it is then that the mosquito, eager for human blood, sings its war-song in our ears and chooses our tenderest spot for the insertion of its envenomed lancet; and it is then that the June-bug quits the sheltering leaf, spreads its resounding wings, and goes booming through the air in quest of its kin. The gnats dance in joyous swarms which the least puff of wind disperses like a column of smoke; the moths, their wings powdered with silver dust and their antennæ displayed plume-fashion, indulge in frolicsome gambols or go in search of favorable places for laying their eggs; the little wood-gnawing beetles explore the [ ]wrinkled bark of old tree-trunks; the wheat-moths rise in clouds from the ravaged grain and take flight for fresh fields; and other night-flying insects flutter about, alighting on grape-vines and fruit-trees, all busily searching for food and shelter for their calamitous offspring. 347 “But suddenly this scene of jollity is intruded upon by a most unwelcome kill-joy. The bat, with zig-zag course, flits hither and thither, up and down, back and forth, untiring of wing, appearing and disappearing, darting its head out this way and that, and each time catching an insect in flight, which it immediately crushes and gobbles up, sending it to its doom down a throat that opens wide from ear to ear. It is famous hunting: gnats, beetles, moths, all are there in plenty, and every once in a while a little cry of joy announces the capture of an especially plump victim. As long as the fading twilight admits of it, the ardent hunter continues in this way his work of extermination. Stuffed to repletion at last, the bat regains its dark and quiet retreat; but on the morrow, and every day thereafter throughout the summer, the hunt will be resumed, always with the same ardor, always at the cost of insects only. My children, respect the bat, our helper in destroying the ravagers of our fields.” About HackerNoon Book Series: We bring you the most important technical, scientific, and insightful public domain books. This book is part of the public domain. Jean-Henri Fabre (2022). Field, Forest and Farm. Urbana, Illinois: Project Gutenberg. Retrieved October https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/67813/pg67813-images.html This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org , located at https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html.

THE FARMER’S HELPERS

581 Stories To Learn About Non Fiction

Learn about the key performance metrics that mobile teams should track in their mobile apps so they can deliver better user experiences. In order to build the best experiences, engineers need the best data available. Mobile makes this challenge more complex, with variables that include device types, different operating systems, and connectivities, to name just a few. With a growing number of tools that all offer varying levels of visibility into your mobile app's health, performance, and stability, it can be difficult to know exactly which metrics you should be tracking. In this post, we’ll outline the most important performance metrics you need to track and how they help you get to the root cause of issues more quickly so you can build better mobile experiences. 1. Startup time Mobile users typically check their apps on the go and are accustomed to instantaneous results. Therefore, they won’t sit around and wait for the app to load. For example, if the Uber app takes too long to load, the user will probably switch to the Lyft app instead. In addition, users who had a poor experience in the Uber app and a decent experience in the Lyft app are much more likely to become a loyal Lyft user. Now, not only have you lost revenue from that user’s session, but your cost per acquisition and churn increased, not to mention the LTV that particular customer could have brought the company. Therefore, is essential to its success. ensuring your app’s startup time meets user expectations However, if the mobile team only has access to the , they probably miss key changes and respond reactively rather than proactively. average startup time For example, let’s say a company is launching its app into a new market, and the overall feedback is negative. The average startup time shows that the app is a few milliseconds longer than it was before the launch, but it doesn’t indicate that it became dramatically slower during the launch. So there must be another problem, right? Unfortunately, because the percentage of users in the new market is only a fraction of the overall user base, it makes sense that even an abysmal startup time in the new market would only minimally impact the total user base’s startup time. Instead, the team needs to be able to segment the data to better understand how startup time impacts the business. For example, how are high-value users suffering from slow startups? Are users in a new market experiencing worse performance? Are certain devices experiencing slower startups? This data puts your company back in control of the situation and omits the guesswork in time-sensitive scenarios that impact your revenue. To learn more, check out our eBook on . how to improve mobile app startup time 2. Crash rate are a surefire way to anger customers and for a good reason! It’s essentially the equivalent of a customer walking into a brick-and-mortar store where the staff kicks them out the door halfway through their shopping. Crashes This is a major issue for the company’s brand for two reasons: It as customers feel their time is disrespected. damages the reputation of your brand It hurts your revenue as customers can’t complete their immediate transaction, and you lose the lifetime value of that customer if they decide to switch to a competitor. Here are just a few examples from various industries where a crash directly translates to lost revenue: If an e-commerce app crashes during checkout, the customer won’t be able to make their purchase and likely won’t be back. E-commerce Apps: : If a POS system crashes during a live event, none of those live customers will be able to make a purchase or enter the venue. POS Systems : If a smart device, such as a toothbrush, crashes during the setup process, it’s very likely the customer will return the product. Smart Device Apps However, while tracking the average crash rate is a good start, it’s . still not enough to understand how crashes impact your business For example, if the current crash rate is just 0.5%, you might not see the need to drill deeper. However, what if all of the crashes that occur happen at the checkout screen? That tiny percentage could be cheating the business out of significant revenue. So, in addition to looking at the major metric numbers, it’s also important to have data that shows patterns in the crash rate. Specifically, how are various high-value areas in your app performing? Which devices tend to experience the most crashes? How is the app performing for high-value users? Are there any regions that experience particularly poor crash rates? And if so, should the app be fixed or removed from those regions? By segmenting crash details, your team can better prioritize fixing issues. 3. ANR rate are typically described as freezes or glitches. Application Not Responding (ANR) errors Essentially, if the main thread is blocked, the applications cannot run effectively. Therefore, the user cannot proceed, which can have a major impact on your business. For example, a retailer we worked with had an issue with ANRs. This issue was causing startup times to increase by almost 60%, translating to an estimated revenue loss of $6.5 million per year. , the engineering team was able to quickly address the issue and reclaim that lost revenue. With the right data Beyond revenue, ANRs can also in the Google Play Store and make it less visible to new customers. negatively impact an app’s rankings To effectively track ANRs, you can look at the stack trace and see how users responded to the issue. From there, the mobile team can prioritize what to fix first based on how many people leave at various thresholds, where high-value users are most affected, and which device types and screens are most affected by ANRs. To learn more, check out . this post on investigating Android crashes like ANRs 4. Region metrics Tracking region metrics is also very important as users in different regions have different devices and different connectivities. This can have a major impact on the business for several reasons. First, regions differ in their importance to a business’s bottom line. For example, perhaps only a portion of your users are in Singapore, but they might make up a large portion of your total annual revenue. Therefore, checking region metrics on a granular level will spotlight opportunities to improve the app, particularly for high-value users. Tracking segmented region metrics is also essential when launching into a new region. For example, suppose you expand into Australia, yet that geographic area only makes up 5% of all users on launch. In that case, it won’t impact median/average metrics enough to allow the team to effectively track performance. It’s also important to take into account cultural differences, and with a tool that provides region-specific metrics, the team can test specific aspects of the app just for that region. For example, an e-commerce checkout screen that converts well in the United States may not convert as well in Dubai. In addition, granular region metrics make it easy to roll out new features slowly. For example, the team can roll out a new feature in a smaller region and see how it performs. If it performs well, roll it out to more and more regions with higher-value users. This data can guide your team in answering critical questions like: Do we need to build a new app for this region? How is this new launch performing compared to launches in other regions? Which regions are the most problematic? And should we stop serving them altogether? ​​How are various critical areas of the app performing in one region versus another? 5. Session duration Another key metric to keep an eye on is session duration, as it signals how long users are using your app. If the average session duration changes dramatically in a week, it’s a pretty good hint that there is an issue with the app. For example, if you have a gaming app and notice the average session duration dropped from 15 minutes to 5 minutes, there’s a good chance that users had a poor experience. With this clue, you can ask questions like: Did we ship a bad release? Are users less engaged with the app? Is there a corresponding change in another metric that can help explain the change in session duration? Tracking session duration also allows the team to investigate patterns among the affected individual sessions and discover the root cause of issues. By analyzing session duration in parallel with other metrics, mobile engineers can draw a clearer picture of which issues are most intrusive to users. For example, an e-commerce store might have an OOM issue on the main scrolling feed of products that correlates strongly with a shorter session duration, whereas slow network calls on another screen have little to no correlation with the session duration. Therefore, tracking session duration is a great way to prioritize which issues should be fixed first as it directly reveals reduced user engagement. 6. Churn/retention rate It costs a lot more to acquire a new customer than it does to keep a current customer happy, and a leading cause of churn in mobile app users is a poor user experience. Downloading a new app only takes a few seconds, so if an app’s experience interrupts the user in a way that takes more than a few seconds of their time, don’t expect them to stick around. Therefore, track not only the overall churn and retention rate but also the churn and retention rates of segments of the user base (by devices, connectivities, regions, etc.). This will illuminate various opportunities to improve and prioritize retention. For example, you may find that while the churn rate is very high in one particular region, that region has few high-value users. Therefore, you may decide to invest engineering resources somewhere else where they will translate to larger business outcomes. Tracking churn and retention is also a great way to understand how users respond to new releases and various experiments. If there is a correlation between high churn and a new feature update, that’s a strong indicator that the team needs to roll back that feature update. Detailed data will allow the team to track the churn of various segments (such as specific regions or devices) to which the update is rolled out. Without segmented data, it will be difficult to see the impact that various feature updates have on small testing groups. Therefore, only once the feature is rolled out to a large group of users (and presumably caused many monthly active users to leave) will it become apparent that the feature rollout was premature. 7. User termination rate While some user terminations are nothing more than a user decluttering their phone, many terminations occur because the app has frozen, and the user has no choice but to swipe up and terminate the session. Of course, a user who is forced to terminate their session will likely be disgruntled and choose a competitor’s app instead. To prevent this, monitoring the average user termination rate is an excellent indicator of potential issues that could lead to churn, including: Failed ad loads are causing freezes Slow or broken user flows Failing purchases Server outages causing login errors Excessive media loading that causes slowdowns In addition to providing an overview of the average user termination rates, mobile teams need to know the source of every poor user experience. Therefore, one of the key features we built into Embrace is the ability to see . which screens cause frustrated users to abandon your app Therefore, rather than wasting valuable time and losing sales while engineers guess where the terminations are occurring, the mobile team is immediately directed to the issue so that they can fix the problem as efficiently as possible. 8. Timing of key user actions There are likely a few user actions within your app that absolutely must work 100% of the time. For example, if an office offers keyless entry, that feature must work every time. Otherwise, people may not be able to enter the office without calling additional support. Therefore, select a few key user actions and add them to the list of performance metrics the mobile team is tracking. In many cases, customer reviews don’t say where they experienced an issue in the app, so tracking specific user actions is a great way to catch issues that otherwise aren’t immediately apparent. This also helps you answer questions like: How many users experience issues in these critical areas of the app? Is there a direct correlation between issues in specific areas of the app and churn? How long do users try before giving up and abandoning the app? For example, one of our customers noticed that about 1% of all purchase attempts resulted in purchase failures. However, both of the associated network calls were resolving successfully, so there were no obvious errors to inspect. Therefore, they began tracking the exact moment a customer would make a purchase and found that the two network calls were happening out of order in 1% of purchase attempts, which resulted in a failed purchase. Though customers had been complaining about this issue, the mobile team couldn’t pinpoint the root cause without knowing the timing, outcome, and order of all events within the affected sessions. High-fidelity user experience data was vital in helping them reclaim 1% of their total sales. For a company doing $10 million in annual sales, that’s $100,000 that would otherwise be lost each year! 9. Memory usage It’s important to track your app’s memory consumption to identify any potential memory leaks. The efficiency of your app’s memory usage directly relates to how responsive your user experience is. This is why monitoring and optimizing memory usage plays a crucial role in delivering a seamless user experience. You can avoid issues with your app’s memory usage by: Optimizing your codebase and pinpointing areas where memory is unintentionally retained causes an increase in memory usage. Tracking your app’s memory consumption on a regular basis, noting any changes after new releases. Carefully monitoring memory-intensive operations like loading large images or processing large files and creating for abnormal spikes or sustained high memory usage. alerts A fine-tuned strategy regarding your app’s memory consumption creates responsive, stable, and effective apps that your users will love. 10. Connectivity Mobile apps operate in diverse environments with varying , including 3G, 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi, and sometimes limited or unstable connectivity. network conditions This is why it’s important to recognize the challenges posed by these varying conditions to create great user experiences. Indicators of poor network performance include: Latency and slow response times. Bandwidth usage. Inefficient API calls. Device-specific offline capabilities. For example, is an agricultural app that allows farmers and agronomists to document their findings while they’re in the field with their peers and colleagues. Farm Dog The app would crash often when network response times were exceptionally slow and when devices couldn’t determine whether they were connected. They noticed that Google Maps response times between 18-22 seconds when they should be only a few seconds. Without the proper tooling, they would need to use convoluted workarounds to solve issues using a proxy to simulate a bad network connection. However, with higher-fidelity data, they can see the exact conditions users have in the field, including: Network calls across device types, app versions, Wi-Fi, and cellular. Insight into 4xx and 5xx error trends across common domains to identify problematic pathways. The broken endpoints that prevent your users from starting up the app, loading key content, or completing crucial transactions. The duration of every network call from the client side reveals hidden points of latency. Armed with this information, the Farm Dog team simulated the issues their users faced, easily identified the problematic conditions, and fixed them. Set your mobile team up for success If you care about mobile experiences, then you need the data that enables your team to see all of the metrics mentioned above. Embrace helps you build better mobile experiences by giving you just that data, making your engineers more efficient and less bogged down by tedious work. Learn more about and download report to learn about key app frustrations according to users. Embrace The State of Mobile Experience Author: Colin Contreary Also published . here

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