Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

by Nir Eyal

a change in how users perceive the behavior.

how small investments change our perception, turning unfamiliar actions into everyday habits.

the escalation of c...

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.

by asking customers to assemble their own furniture, Ariely believes they adopt an irrational love of the furniture they built,

studies reveal that our past is an excellent predictor of our future.

To avoid the cognitive dissonance of not liking something that others seem to take so much pleasure in, we slowly change our perception of the thing we once did not enjoy.

The more effort we put into something, the more likely we are to value it; we are more likely to be consistent with our past behaviors; and finally, we change our preferences to avoid cognitive dissonance.

These tendencies of ours lead to a mental process known as rationalization, in which we change our attitudes and beliefs to adapt psychologically.

standard feedback loop the cue, action, and reward cycle can

investments are about the anticipation of longer-term rewards, not immediate gratification.

In the investment phase, however, asking users to do a bit of work comes after users have received variable rewards, not before.

The big idea behind the investment phase is to leverage the user’s understanding that the service will get better with use (and personal investment).

collection of memories and experiences, in aggregate, becomes more valuable over time and the service becomes harder to leave as users’ personal investment in the site grows.

Reputation is a form of stored value users can literally take to the bank.

Reputation makes users, both buyers and sellers, more likely to stick with whichever service they have invested their efforts in to maintain a high-quality score

Investing time and effort into learning to use a product is a form of investment and stored value. Once a user has acquired a skill, using the service becomes easier and moves them to the right on the ability axis of the Fogg Behavior Model

non-routine is a factor of simplicity, and the more familiar a behavior is, the more likely the user is to do it.

The investment phase is the fourth step in the Hook Model.

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 behavio...

ask yourself these 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 matrix seeks to help you answer not “Can I hook my users?” but instead “Should I attempt to?” To use the Manipulation Matrix (figure 36), the maker needs to ask two questions. First, “Would I use the product myself?” and second, “Will the product help users materially improve their lives?”

1. The Facilitator When you create something that you would use, that you believe makes the user’s life better, you are facilitating a healthy habit.

2. The Peddler Heady altruistic ambitions can at times outpace reality. Too often, designers of manipulative technology have a strong motivation to improve the lives of their users, but when pressed they admit they would not actually use their own creations.

3. The Entertainer Sometimes makers of products just want to have fun. If creators of a potentially addictive technology make something that they use but can’t in good conscience claim improves users’ lives, they’re making entertainment.

Art is often fleeting; products that form habits around entertainment tend to fade quickly from users’ lives.

4. The Dealer Creating a product that the designer does not believe improves users’ lives and that he himself would not use is called exploitation.

The most highly regarded entrepreneurs are driven by meaning, a vision for greater good that drives them forward.

Build for meaning,

The Fogg Behavior Model (see chapter 3) notes that for an action to occur, users must receive a trigger and have sufficient motivation and ability to complete it.

High on the list of findings is the importance of ease of use,

Skeptics might call this subjective validation, and psychologists term it the Forer effect, but to the faithful it amounts to personally communicating with God.

phases of the model

internal trigger

external trigger

action...

r...

i...

Building a habit-forming product is an iterative process and requires user-behavior analysis and continuous experimentation.

Habit Testing. It is a process inspired by the “build, measure, learn” methodology championed by the lean start-up movement.

First, define what it means to be a devoted user. How often “should” one use your product?

the next step is to codify the steps they took using your product to understand what hooked them.

You are looking for a Habit Path—a series of similar actions shared by your most loyal users.

time to revisit your product and identify ways to nudge new users down the same Habit Path taken by devotees.

Tracking users by cohort and comparing their activity with that of habitual users should guide how products evolve and improve.

“Instead of asking ‘what problem should I solve?’ ask ‘what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?’”2

Studying your own needs can lead to remarkable discoveries and new ideas because the designer always has a direct line to at least one user: him- or herself.

Careful introspection can uncover opportunities for building habit-forming products.

As you go about your day, ask yourself why you do or do not do certain things and how those tasks could be made easier or more rewarding.