Hooked - Nir Eyal
How to Build Habit-Forming Products
[bq] “Cognitive psychologists define habits as ‘automatic behaviors triggered by situational cues’: things we do with little or no conscious thought.”
Hooked Model in four steps:
Trigger: external and internal triggers initiate user behvaior.
Action: user performs an action in anticipation of a reward.
Variable Reward: unpredictable rewards create desire and craving.
Investment: by committing some time and energy to the products (e.g. inviting friends or building assets), users expect to make the next loop even better.
[bq] “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a superpower.”
But hooked model can be used as a force for good, helping people do the things they actually want to do.
[bq] “The convergence of access, data, and speed is making the world a more habit-forming place.”
1. The Habit Zone
[bq] “Habits form when the brain takes a shortcut and stops actively deliberating over what to do next."
Building customer habits is an effective way to increase customer lifetime value (CLTV).
[bq] “Habits give companies greater flexibility to increase prices.”
[bq] “Hooked users become brand evangelists - megaphones for your company, bringing in new users at little or no cost.”
User habits also protect against competition, providing a barrier against companies that are only marginally better.
[bq] “Products that require a high degree of behavior change are doomed to fail.”
New habits are generally less sticky than older habits, and more easily unlearned.
[bq] “Frequent engagement with a product - especially over a short period of time - increases the likelihood of forming new routines.”
If the combination of frequency and perceived utility of an action/product is high enough, it’s in the “Habit Zone.”
[bq] “A habit is when not doing an action causes a bit of discomfort.”
2. Trigger
Habits don’t just form, they are built upon triggers.
External triggers are calls to action in the environment, communication the next action the user should take.
Four types of external triggers:
Paid Triggers: e.g. advertising. Usually only used to acquire new users.
Earned Triggers: e.g. media attention or App Store feature. Can lead to great short-term user spike, but hard to predict and maintain.
Relationship Triggers: relying on users to recruit other users
Owned Triggers: e.g. app icon, newsletter subscription, notification. User gives the product designer a permission to own some of their attention.
Once external triggers have formed a habit, internal triggers take over.
[bq] “When a product becomes tightly coupled with a thought, an emotion, or a preexisting routine, it leverages an internal trigger.”
Pain, even if it’s just a subtle feeling of boredom, loneliness, frustration, or indecision, can be a strong trigger.
[bq] “Product designers must know their user’s internal triggers - that is, the pain they seek to solve.”
User should identify your product with a sense of relief.
3. Action
[bq] “To initiate action, doing must be easier than thinking."
Fogg Behavior Model: B = MAT
A behavior (B) occurs when motivation (M), ability (A) and a trigger (T) are present at the same time at sufficient levels.
Motivation measures the desire to take an action.
Three Core Motivators:
Seek pleasure, avoid pain.
Seek hope, avoid fear.
Seek social acceptance, avoid rejection.
A great path to innovation is to take an existing process (ideally tied to a strong desire) and make it simpler and quicker.
Six elements of Simplicity:
Time
Money
Physical effort
Brain cycles
Social deviance
Non-routine
[bq] “The greatest return on investment generally comes from increasing a product’s ease of use.”
Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts we use, and they can be utilized by product designers.
(Perceived) scarcity can increase a products perceived value.
Framing and context also influence perception.
Anchoring to a particular piece of information (e.g. a discount) can shape decisions and perception.
Giving users the sense of progress right from the beginning (e.g. a loyalty stamp card that already has a stamp on it) makes it much more likely that users will continue the progress.
4. Variable Rewards
[bq] “What draws us to act is not the sensation we receive from the reward itself, but the need to alleviate the craving for that reward.”
[bq] “To hold our attention, products must have an ongoing degree of novelty.”
Three types of variable rewards:
Rewards of the Tribe: rewards that make us feel accepted, attractive, important and included.
Rewards of the Hunt: our drive to collect and acquire objects, resources, and information is part of our brain’s operating system.
Rewards of the Self: intrinsic motivation and a sense of competency can be rewarding in themselves.
[bq] “Only by understanding what truly matters to users can a company correctly match the right variable reward to their intended behavior.”
[bq] “An element of mystery is an important component of continued user interest.”
Some products and services have inherent uncertainty/variability (e.g. Google search, Uber arrival times). These don’t need additional artificial variability.
The user needs to retain a sense of autonomy.
5. Investment
[bq] “The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it. […] Labor leads to love.”
The investment should ideally come after receiving a variable reward and give the user a sense of the product getting better and better the more they invest.
Should break the investment up if possible, starting with small and simple ones and then increasing on consecutive cycles.
If done well, users set future triggers during the investment phase.
6. What Are You Going to Do With This?
[bq] “The Hooked Model is fundamentally abut changing people’s behavior.”
Manipulation tends to have a negative connotation, but it can be both positive or negative.
Creators should ask themselves two questions:
Would I use the product myself?
Will the product help users materially improve their lives?
7. Case Studies
[bq] “The most highly regarded entrepreneurs are driven by meaning, a vision for greater good that drives them forward.”
8. Habit-Testing and Where to Look for Habit-Forming Opportunities
[bq] “Building a habit-forming product is an iterative process and requires user-behavior analysis and continuous experimentation.”
3-Step Habit Testing Process:
Identify: How often should a habitual user engage with the product, and how many/which type of users currently satisfy this?
Codify: Identify what steps the current habitual users have taken to get to where they are. This helps define a “Habit Path"
Modify: Update the product to nudge more people down the Habit Path.
[q] “Instead of asking ‘what problem should I solve?’ ask ‘what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?’” - Paul Graham
Looking at early adopters, an entrepreneur can gain insights of technologies and behaviors that are currently niche use cases but can potentially be taken mainstream.