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Hooked by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover - Coggle Diagram
Hooked by Nir Eyal and Ryan Hoover
Introduction
Habit forming product are engineered to do so as intended by the designers
First to Mind Wins
Internal triggers
Instead of expensive marketing, habit forming products link to daily routines and emotions
Bored
Twitter
Loneliness
Facebook
Question
Google
Hooks
Series of experiences
Form habits
How I got Hooked
Mission to build a platform for placing ads on social games
Millions of dollars selling virtual cows on digital farms
Ads to influence to buy products
How did they do it?
Learn how products change our actions and create compulsions
How did these companies engineer user behaviour?
What were the moral implications of building potentially addictive products?
Could the same forces that made these experiences so compelling also be used to build product to improve lives?
Documenting
Four phase to form habits
Drives ultimate goal of unprompted user engagement, bringing users back repeatedly, without Ads or aggressive messaging
The hook model
Trigger (Internal or External)
Action
Variable Reward
Investment
A New Superpower
How to use this book
Bulleted takeaways at the end of each section
"Do This Now" is a guide to the next steps
Remember and Share
Habits are defined as "behaviours done with little or no conscious thought"
The convergence of access, data, and speed is making the world a more habit-forming place
Businesses that create customer habits gain a significant competitive advantage
The hook model describes an experience designed to connect the user's problem to a solution frequently enough to form a habit
The hook model has four phases: trigger, action, variable, reward and investment
The Habit Zone
Intro
Why habits are good for Business
Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
Providing Pricing Flexibility
Sharpening the competitive edge
Building the Mind Monopoly
Habit as strategy
In the habit zone
Vitamins versus painkillers
Diving into the hook model
Remember & Share
For some business, forming habits is a critical component for success, but not every business requires habitual user engagement
When successful, forming strong user habits can have several business benefits
Higher customer lifetime vale (CLTV)
greater pricing flexibility
super charged growth
sharper competitive edge
Habits cannot form outside the Habit Zone, where behavior occurs with enough frequency and perceived utility
Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers)
Habit-forming products alleviates users' pain by relieving a pronounced itch
Its a form of manipulation. Product builders would benefit from a bit of introspection before attempting to hook users to make sure they are building healthy habits, not unhealthy addictions (more on chapter 8)
Do this now (if you building habit forming products, write down the answers to these questions)
What habits does your business model require?
What problem are users turning to your product to solve?
How do users currently solve that problem and why does it need a solution?
How frequently do you expect users to engage with your product?
What user behavior do you want to make into a habit?
Trigger
Introduction
Habits are not created, they are built upon
External Triggers
Types of external triggers
Paid Triggers
Earned Triggers
Relationship Triggers
Owned Triggers
Building for Triggers
Unpacking Instagram's Triggers
Internal Triggers
Remember & Share
Triggers cue the user to take action and are the first step in the Hook Model
Triggers come in two types - external and internal
External triggers tell the user what to do by placing information within the user's environment
Internal triggers tell the user what to do next through association stored in the user's memory
Negative emotions frequently serve as internal triggers
To build a habit-forming product, makers need to understand which user emotions may be tied to internal triggers and know how to leverage external triggers to drive the user to action
Do This Now
Who is your product's user?
What is the user doing right before your indented habit?
Come up with three internal triggers that could cue your user to action. Refer to the 5 whys method described in this chapter
Which internal trigger does your user experience most frequently?
Finish the brief narrative using the most frequent internal trigger and the habit you are designing: "Every time the user (internal trigger), he/she (first action of intended habit)."
Think of at least 3 conventional triggers (emails, notifications, text messages), then stretch to currently impossible ideas (wearable computers, biometric sensors, carrier pigeons) - In a few years it will be possible.
Action
Intro
Action vs Inaction
Motivation
Motivation Examples in Advertising
Ability
Elements of Simplicity (6 factors)
Time - How long it take to complete an action
Money - the fiscal cost of taking an action
Physical Effort - the amount of labor involved in taking the action
Brain cycles - the level of mental effort and focus required to take an action
Social deviance - how accepted the behavior is by others
Non-routine - How much action matches or disrupts existing routines
Logging in with facebook
Sharing with twitter button
Searching with Google
Taking Photos with the Apple iPhone
Scrolling with Pinterest
Motivation or Ability: Which should increase first?
Ability - Ease of use is very important
The Evolution of Twitter’s Home Page
On Heuristics and Perception
The Scarcity Effect
The Framing Effect
The Anchoring Effect
The Endowed Progress Effect
Remember & Share
the 2nd step is Action
Action is the simplest behavior in anticipation of reward
As described by Dr. B.J Foggs's Behavior model
For any behavior to occur, the trigger must present at the same time as the user has sufficient ability and motivation to take action
To increase the desired behavior, ensure a clear trigger is present, increase ability by making the action easier to do, finally align with the right motivator
Every behavior is driven by one of three Core Motivators: seeking pleasure and avoiding pain; seeking hope and avoiding fear; seeking social acceptance while avoiding social rejection
Ability is influenced by six factors of time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routineness. Ability is dependent on users and their context at the moment
Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts we take to make quick decisions. Product designers can utilize many of the hundreds of heuristics to increase the likelihood of their desired action
Do this now
Walk through the path your users would take to use your product or service, beginning from the time they feel their internal trigger to the point where they receive their expected outcome.
How many steps does it take before users obtain the reward they came for?
How does this process compare with simplicity of some of the examples described in this chapter?
How does it compare with competing products and
services?
Which resources are limiting your users’ ability to accomplish
the tasks that will become habits?
Time
Brain cycles (too confusing)
Money
Social deviance (outside the norm)
Physical effort
Non-routine (too new)
Brainstorm three testable ways to make intended tasks easier to complete
Consider how you might apply heuristics to make habit-forming more likely
Variable Reward
Understanding rewards
Rewards of the Tribe, the Hunt and the Self
Rewards of the Tribe
Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted,
attractive, important, and included.
Facebook
Stack Overflow
League of Legends
Rewards of the Hunt
The need to acquire physical objects, such as food and other supplies that aid our survival, is part of our brain’s operating system.
Machine Gambling
Twitter
Pinterest
Rewards of the Self
The rewards of the self are fueled by “intrinsic motivation” as highlighted by the work of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan. Their self-determination theory espouses that people desire, among other things, to gain a sense of competency. Adding an element of mystery to this goal makes the pursuit all the more enticing
Video Games
E-mail
Codeacademy
Important Considerations for Designing Reward
Systems
Variable Rewards Are Not a Free Pass
Only by understanding what truly matters to users can a company correctly match the right variable reward to their intended behavior.
Maintain a Sense of Autonomy
Beware of Finite Variability
Experiences with finite variability become less engaging because
they eventually become predictable.
Which Rewards Should You Offer?
REMEMBER & SHARE
Variable reward is the third phase of the Hook Model, and there are three types of variable rewards: the tribe, the hunt, and the self.
Rewards of the tribe is the search for social rewards fueled
by connectedness with other people.
Rewards of the hunt is the search for material resources and
information.
Rewards of the self is the search for intrinsic rewards of
mastery, competence, and completion.
When our autonomy is threatened, we feel constrained by our lack of choices and often rebel against doing a new behavior. Psychologists refer to this as reactance. Maintaining a sense of user autonomy is a requirement for repeat engagement.
Experiences with finite variability become increasingly predictable with use and lose their appeal over time. Experiences that maintain user interest by sustaining variability with use exhibit infinite variability.
Variable rewards must satisfy users’ needs while leaving
them wanting to reengage with the product
DO THIS NOW
Speak with five of your customers in an open-ended interview to identify what they find enjoyable or encouraging about using your product. Are there any moments of delight or surprise? Is there anything they find particularly satisfying about using the product?
Review the steps your customer takes to use your product or service habitually. What outcome (reward) alleviates the user’s pain? Is the reward fulfilling, yet leaves the user wanting more?
Brainstorm three ways your product might heighten users’
search for variable rewards using:
rewards of the tribe—gratification from others
rewards of the hunt—material goods, money, or information.
rewards of the self—mastery, completion, competency, or
consistency.
UNDERSTANDING VARIABILITY
Investment
Changing Attitude
The more users invest time and ef ort into a product or service, the more they value it. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that our labor leads to love
We Irrationally Value Our Efforts
Origami study
IKEA's ready to assemble model
We Seek to Be Consistent with Our Past Behaviors
Start with small investments and go bigger
We Avoid Cognitive Dissonance
Fox changes perception about grapes
Acquired taste
rationalization
Mafia Wars
REMEMBER & SHARE
The investment phase is the fourth step in the Hook Model.
Unlike the action phase, which delivers immediate gratification, the investment phase concerns the anticipation of rewards in the future.
Investments in a product create preferences because of our tendency to overvalue our work, be consistent with past behaviors, and avoid cognitive dissonance.
Investment comes after the variable reward phase, when
users are primed to reciprocate.
Investments increase the likelihood of users returning by improving the service the more it is used. They enable the accrual of stored value in the form of content, data, followers, reputation, or skill.
Investments increase the likelihood of users passing through the Hook again by loading the next trigger to start the cycle all over again.
DO THIS NOW
Review your flow. What “bit of work” are your users doing to
increase their likelihood of returning?
Brainstorm three ways to add small investments into your
product to:
Load the next trigger
Store value as data, content, followers, reputation, and
skill.
Identify how long it takes for a “loaded trigger” to reengage your users. How can you reduce the delay to shorten time spent cycling through the Hook?
BITS OF WORK
Ask small investment after the reward
Storing Value
Content
iTunes adding playlist
Facebook record digital life
Data
LinkedIn Personal info
Followers
Twitter building loyal followers
Reputation
Airbnb host reviews
Skill
Photoshop learning
Loading the Next Trigger
Any.do
Tinder
Snapchat
Pinterest
What are you going to do with this?
REMEMBER & SHARE
To help you, as a designer of habit-forming technology, assess the morality behind how you manipulate users, it is helpful to determine which of the four categories your work fits into. Are you a facilitator, peddler, entertainer, or dealer?
Facilitators use their own product and believe it can materially improve people’s lives. They have the highest chance of success because they most closely understand the needs of their users.
Peddlers believe their product can materially improve people’s lives but do not use it themselves. They must beware of the hubris and inauthenticity that comes from building solutions for people they do not understand firsthand.
Entertainers use their product but do not believe it can improve people’s lives. They can be successful, but without making the lives of others better in some way, the entertainer’s products often lack staying power.
Dealers neither use the product nor believe it can improve people’s lives. They have the lowest chance of finding longterm success and often find themselves in morally precarious positions.
DO THIS NOW
Take a minute to consider where you fall on the Manipulation Matrix. Do you use your own product or service? Does it influence positive or negative behaviors? How does it make you feel? Ask yourself if you are proud of the way you are influencing the behavior of others.
five fundamental questions for building effective hooks
What do users really want? What pain is your product relieving? (Internal trigger)
What brings users to your service? (External trigger)
What is the simplest action users take in anticipation of reward, and how can you simplify your product to make this action easier? (Action)
Are users fulfilled by the reward yet left wanting more? (Variable reward)
What “bit of work” do users invest in your product? Does it load the next trigger and store value to improve the product with use? (Investment)
The Morality of Manipulation
The Facilitator
The Peddler
The Entertainer
The Dealer
Case Study: The Bible App
REMEMBER & SHARE
The Bible App was far less engaging as a desktop Web site; the mobile interface increased accessibility and usage by providing frequent triggers.
The Bible App increases users’ ability to take action by frontloading interesting content and providing an alternative audio
version
By separating the verses into small chunks, users find the Bible easier to read on a daily basis; not knowing what the next verse will be adds a variable reward.
Every annotation, bookmark, and highlight stores data (and
value) in the app, further committing users
If you only build for fame or fortune, you will likely find neither. Build for meaning, though, and you can’t go wrong.
In the Beginning
How to Form a God Habit
Holy Triggers
Glory Be in the Data
Rewards from the Lord
Habit Testing and Where to Look for Habit-Forming Opportunities
REMEMBER & SHARE
The Hook Model helps the product designer generate an initial prototype for a habit-forming technology. It also helps uncover potential weaknesses in an existing product’s habit-forming potential.
Once a product is built, Habit Testing helps uncover product devotees, discover which product elements (if any) are habit forming, and why those aspects of your product change user behavior. Habit Testing includes three steps: identify, codify, and modify.
First, dig into the data to identify how people are using the
product.
Next, codify these findings in search of habitual users. To generate new hypotheses, study the actions and paths taken by devoted users.
Finally, modify the product to influence more users to follow the same path as your habitual users, and then evaluate results and continue to modify as needed.
Keen observation of one’s own behavior can lead to new
insights and habit-forming product opportunities.
Identifying areas where a new technology makes cycling through the Hook Model faster, more frequent, or more rewarding provides fertile ground for developing new habitforming products.
Nascent behaviors—new behaviors that few people see or do, yet ultimately fulfill a mass-market need—can inform future breakthrough habit-forming opportunities.
DO THIS NOW
Perform Habit Testing, as described in this chapter, to identify
the steps users take toward long-term engagement.
Be aware of your behaviors and emotions for the next week
as you use everyday products. Ask yourself:
What triggered me to use these products? Was I
prompted externally or through internal means?
Am I using these products as intended?
How might these products improve their on-boarding funnels, reengage users through additional external triggers, or encourage users to invest in their services?
Speak with three people outside your social circle to discover which apps occupy the first screen on their mobile devices. Ask them to use these apps as they normally would and see if you uncover any unnecessary or nascent behaviors.
Brainstorm five new interfaces that could introduce
opportunities or threats to your business.
Habit Testing
Step 1: Identify
Step 2: Codify
Step 3: Modify
Discovering Habit-forming Opportunities
Nascent Behaviors
Enabling Technologies
Interface Change