Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

by Nir Eyal

Start-ups are grueling and only the most fortunate persevere before finding success. If you only build for fame or fortune, you will likely find neither. Build for meaning, though, and you can’t go wrong.

The app chunks out and sequences the text by separating it into bite-size pieces.

By parsing readings into digestible communion wafer–size portions, the app focuses the reader’s brain on the small task at hand while avoiding the intimidation of reading the entire book.

High on the list of findings is the importance of ease of use, which came up throughout our conversation.

humblebrag.4 A Harvard meta-analysis, “Disclosing information about the self is intrinsically rewarding,” found the act “engages neural and cognitive mechanisms associated with reward.”5 In fact, sharing feels so good that one study found “individuals were willing to forgo money to disclose about the self.”

The Hook Model can be a helpful tool for filtering out bad ideas with low habit potential as well as a framework for identifying room for improvement in existing products.

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

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

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

Therefore, the first place for the entrepreneur or designer to look for new opportunities is in the mirror.

Paul Graham advises entrepreneurs to leave the sexy-sounding business ideas behind and instead build for their own needs: “Instead of asking ‘what problem should I solve?’ ask ‘what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?’”

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.

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.

Wherever new technologies suddenly make a behavior easier, new possibilities are born.

Many companies have found success in driving new habit formation by identifying how changing user interactions can create new routines.