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However, Quora demonstrated that social rewards and the variable reinforcement of recognition from peers proved to be much more frequent and salient motivators.
Only by understanding what truly matters to users can a company correctly match the right variable reward to their intended behavior.
When there is a mismatch between the customer’s problem and the company’s assumed solution, no amount of gamification will help spur engagement. Likewise, if the user has no ongoing itch at all—say, no need to return repeatedly to a site that lacks any value beyond the initial visit—gamification will fail because of a lack of inherent interest in the product or service offered. In other words, gamification is not a “one size fits all” solution for driving user engagement.
Rewards must fit into the narrative of why the product is used and align with the user’s internal triggers and motivations. They must ultimately improve the user’s life.
In an instant, users lost their treasured anonymity when asking, answering, or simply viewing Quora questions that were personal, awkward, or intimate.
The “but you are free” technique demonstrates how we are more likely to be persuaded to give when our ability to choose is reaffirmed. Not only was the effect observed during face-to-face interactions, but also over e-mail. Although the research did not directly look at how products and services might use the technique, the study provides an important insight into how companies maintain or lose the user’s attention.
The researchers believe the phrase “But you are free” disarms our instinctive rejection of being told what to do.
If you have ever grumbled at your mother when she tells you to put on a coat or felt your blood pressure rise when your boss micromanages you, you have experienced what psychologists term reactance, the hair-trigger response to threats to your autonomy.
However, when a request is coupled with an affirmation of the right to choose, reactance is kept at bay. Yet can the principles of autonomy and reactance carry over into the way products change user behavior and drive the formation of new use...
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foremost an online community.
share encouragement, exchange advice, and receive praise. In fact, a recent study found social factors were the most important reasons people used the service and recommended it to others.25
Unfortunately, too many companies build their products betting users will do what they make them do instead of letting them do what they want to do.
Companies fail to change user behaviors because they do not make their services enjoyable for its own sake, often asking users to learn new, unfamiliar actions instead of making old routines easier.
VEry important
is a problem the characters must
The cycle of conflict, mystery, and resolution is as old as storytelling itself, and at the heart of every good tale is variability. The unknown is fascinating, and strong stories hold our attention by waiting to reveal what happens next.
Online games like FarmVille suffer from what I term finite variability—an experience that becomes predictable after use.
Experiences with finite variability become less engaging because they eventually become predictable.
For example, games played to completion offer finite variability, while those played with other people have higher degrees of infinite variability because the players themselves alter the gameplay throughout. World of Warcraft, the world’s most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing game, still captures the attention of more than 10 million active users eight years after its release.31 FarmVille is played mostly in solitude, but World of Warcraft is frequently played with teams; it is the hard-to-predict behavior of other people that keeps the game interesting.
Sites like Dribbble, a platform for designers and artists to showcase their work, exemplify the longer-lasting engagement that comes from infinite variability.
However, products utilizing infinite variability stand a better chance of holding on to users’ attention, while those with finite variability must constantly reinvent themselves just to keep pace.
The important thing is to give the user a sense of agency over something nobody has control over, namely, the flow of traffic.
Fundamentally, variable reward systems must satisfy users’ needs while leaving them wanting to reengage. As described, the most habit-forming products and services utilize one or more of the three variable rewards types: the tribe, the hunt, and the self. In fact, many habit-forming products offer multiple variable rewards.
However, simply giving users what they want is not enough to create a habit-forming product. The feedback loop of the first three steps of the Hook—trigger, action, and variable reward—still misses a final critical phase. In the next chapter we will learn how getting people to invest their time, effort, data, or social equity in your product is a requirement for repeat use.
Variable reward is the third phase of the Hooked 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 behavior. Psychologists refer to this as reactance. Maintaining a sense of user
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Refer to the answers you came up with in the last “Do This Now” section to complete the following exercises: 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?
there anything they find particularly satisfying about ...
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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.
The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it. In fact, there is ample evidence to suggest that our labor leads to love.
The tiny bit of effort associated with providing more user data created a powerful hook to bring people back to the service.
“Would I actually find this useful?”
Building an enterprise on ephemeral desires is akin to running on an incessantly rolling treadmill: You have to keep up with the constantly changing demands of your users.
In the previous chapter I urged you to be a facilitator and use the tools in this book to improve the lives of others.
The app chunks out and sequences the text by separating it into bite-size pieces.
“Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding,”
Americans spend $19 billion annually on gym memberships.6 Unfortunately, while many people join gyms, few use them for long. According to the Fitness Industry Association, about 44 percent of people who sign up for a gym membership quit after just six months.7
Fitbod’s action phase quickly solves the user’s psychological discomfort
Now that you have an understanding of the Hooked Model and have reflected on the morality of influencing user behavior, it is time to get to work. Running your idea through the four phases of the model will help you discover potential weaknesses in your product’s habit-forming potential. Does your users’ internal trigger frequently prompt them to action? Is your external trigger cueing them when they are most likely to act? Is your design simple enough to make taking the action easy? Does the reward satisfy your users’ need while leaving them wanting more? Do your users invest a bit of work in
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Google simplified the search interface as compared with those of ad-heavy,
identify, codify, and modify.
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
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Christopher J. Carpenter, “A Meta-analysis of the Effectiveness of the ‘But You Are Free’ Compliance-Gaining Technique,” Communication Studies 64, no. 1 (2013): 6–17, doi:10.1080/10510974.2012.727941.
