Measuring Café Lovability Using Google’s HEART and Understanding the Roles of Usability, Sustainability Innovation, and Innovation Cocreation in Café Lovability

This research paper explores and investigates the contemporary, developing, and under-researched concept of product lovability in the UAE café industry to introduce a scientific measure for café lovability using Google’s HEART framework for developing lovable product experiences. Taking a pragmatic view to drawing comparisons between the café ecosystem and layout and digital product interface and experience, the research elaborates on mediating roles of product (café) usability and innovation (by virtue of innovation cocreation and sustainability innovation) in the existence of café lovability. Using a deductive and quantitative approach, a measure of café lovability is devised using Google’s HEART framework to assess levels of happiness, engagement, adoption, retention, and task success at cafés and validates findings using the brand love scale. Once measurable, café lovability is then examined for having possible associations with café usability (a measure of experience, aesthetic, and quality) and café innovation (a measure of innovation cocreation, sustainability innovation and sustainability knowledge), and we also study the mediating impact of café innovation and usability on café lovability and brand love. The resulting model for café lovability provides the means for measuring café lovability and provides grounds for understanding the roles of usability and innovation in this phenomenon. Comparing contemporary café experience with a digital product interface in order to produce a lovable coffee experience is a non-conventional approach; like product lovability, the comparison, measurement, and application relies on pragmatic and innovative strategic decision making; it is therefore considered a practical approach due to the onset of digital and creative new-age customers. Further, the concept of product lovability is gaining popularity in practice but remains undiscussed and unexplored in academic research. This study provides grounds for further scientific research—both quantitative and qualitative—to define, test, and apply the measures of lovable products to businesses outside of technology and digital offerings, as well as providing us with the opportunity to study the overlap of product and café lovability with sustainability.