You can want something, or you can just be interested in things.
On a dating site, you can decide what you want in a partner and filter people for that and message them. Or, you can find many things about people interesting, and look for any of these traits or hobbies, and ask about them.
In software, you can set an engagement metric and aim to move it. Or, you can aim to “be more useful,” think of many possible ways that could happen, and look for ones that you can try.
A danger of aiming for one metric is: in moving that needle, you may degrade essential properties. If your added information makes the page so busy that I can’t look at it, then your needle may move while the software becomes less useful.
In people, the world has more wonder in it than I can think to want. Wide interests invite widening surprise.
There is a place for purposive action (as Gregory Bateson calls it). For deliberately moving directly toward a goal. Maybe that place is limited to systems we can understand and predict.
I’ll be specific about my wants, in the small: I want to write this post. And open to whatever finds me, in the large: someone will subsume it in more interesting ideas.