The fantastic Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of two outstanding books on the psychology of attention. In this weeks episode, we explore Nir’s book HOOKED and how to create habit forming products.
Nir is the the author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life. He has taught at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design School. He has also sold two technology companies since 2003 and now helps teams design more engaging products.
HOOKED
Hooked Model to make a product addictive
- TRIGGER
- ACTION
- VARIABLE REWARD
- INVESTMENT
Trigger – Internal and external
Start with external which becomes internal
Habit Zone
Benefits:
Customer Lifetime Value
Pricing Flexibility
Growth
Competition QWERTY keyboard
LIFO Last in first out (for habits you have)
Frequency of behaviour and
Perceived utility of behaviour
Products start as nice to have and become must haves
Alleviate discomfort through product
TRIGGER
External trigger have information that instruct what to do next
Reduce too many options
Types of External Triggers:
- Paid triggers
- Earned triggers (PR)
- Relationship triggers (REFERRAL)
- Owned Triggers (APP)
Goal is to not need any more external triggers
INTERNAL TRIGGERS
Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, indecisiveness… need to quell them
Life filled with tiny stressors
Identify pain point
Find a product that alleviates pain
ACTION
BJ Fogg – Behavior = Motivation Action Trigger
Pleasure n pain, hope and fear and social acceptance not rejection
Make action easy:
Time, Money, Effort, Brain effort, Social Deviance, Non routine
Reduce effort better than increase desire
Scarcity, Framing, Anchoring, Endowed Progress
Action is simplest behavior in anticipation of reward
Trigger have when ability and motivation there
Clear trigger, increase ability, right motivator
Variable reward
Rewards of tribe – accepted, attractive, important and included
Rewards of hunt – pursuit acquire physical; objects for survival
Rewards of self – mastery self determination theory
Gamification – autonomy
Free to accept or refuse (reactance)
Experiences with finite variability less engaging because predictable
Inherent variability – google search
Investment
Consistent with Identity
Stored value that user puts into it… Content spotify, netflix
Followers
Reputation (maintain habit high score)
Skills (already invested)
USE HOOKED MODEL
- What do users really want?
- What brings user to your service?
- What is the simplest actions users can take for reward?
- Are users fulfilled by the reward yet wanting more?
- What investment do users do in product? (does it load triggers or store value to improve product experience)
Manipulation Matrix
Use it or not
Improves users life
Facilitator
Entertainer
Peddler
Dealer
Bible, Fitness App
Identify (How should use product)
Codify (habit path actions shared by loyal users)
Modify
Technology changes things and makes some habits necessary