App Usage Statistics - WHAT do you gather?

Question

I am considering adding "gather anonymous usage statistics", and was looking around for suggestions and experiences. I was a bit surprised that I could find a lot of how, but only little discussion about what and why.

(N.B. I understand it's not an ideal fit, as core UX is only part of the equation -- if someone can recommend a better place to ask, I'd be grateful.)

Motivation:

I am mainly looking for which features are used how frequently.

First, there are these awful UX discussions, based on "noone will ever find that button", "everyone does it that way anyway" - merely opinions that are tied to personal preferences

Then, features that have been superseded by "bigger, better" and could technically be removed to reduce maintenance effort, how important are they really?

The same goes for marketing and research: what are people actually using?

In addition, I am looking for quality indicators ("unexpected" errors, crashes, key performance characterstics).

So, my question: do you have any experience with that process, or point out a resource of someone who does? What data did you gather, what did you make of it?

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related: How to improve anonymous statistics reporting rate?

Answer 1

You use the data to answer questions. So:

1. If you know the questions you are asking, gather the data you need to answer your questions.
2. If you don't yet know the questions you are asking, gather everything (or as much as possible and practical).

Answer 2

I've found HEART framework metrics proposed by Google very useful. If you start thinking along the guidelines offered by this framework you will be able to answer this question.