TermCraft conventionFoundational
Vanity Metric
A number that looks good and tells you nothing.
Definition
A measure that rises reliably and does not inform any decision.
Craft convention. True because the industry converged on it. Breaking it costs familiarity, not correctness.
In plain language
A number that looks good and tells you nothing.
Example
Cumulative registered users, which can only go up regardless of whether anyone uses the product.
Continue from here
Each link says what the connection is, so you can tell a principle from an alternative from a thing people mix this up with.
Deeper reading
The full entry behind this definition.
- Survivorship BiasCognitive bias
- Product AnalyticsResearch method
Nearby in the Atlas
Adjacent territory, found through shared tags rather than a stated link.