Summary of Hooked: Habit Forming Strategy

Introduction

Habits are defined as behaviors done with little or no conscious thought.

Hook Model: four-phase process companies use to forms habits. Through consecutive hook cycles, successful products reach their ultimate goal of unprompted user engagement, bringing users back repeatedly, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.

The Habit Zone

For some businesses, forming habits is a critical component to success, but not every business requires habitual user engagement.

When successful, forming strong user habits can have several business benefits including: higher customer lifetime value, greater pricing flexibility, supercharged growth, and a sharper competitive edge.

Habits cannot form outside the “Habit Zone,” where the behavior occurs with enough frequency and perceived utility.

Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers).

Habit-forming products alleviate users’ pain by relieving a pronounced itch.

Designing habit-forming products is a form of manipulation. Product builders would benefit from a bit of introspection before attempting to hook users to make sure they are building healthy habits, not unhealthy addictions

Why Habits are Good for Business

• Increasing Customer Lifetime Value
• Providing Pricing Flexibility
• Supercharging Growth
• Sharpening the Competitive Edge
• Building the Mind Monopoly

Habit Zone

Vitamins vs. Painkillers

Painkillers solve an obvious need, relieving a specific pain and often have quantifiable markets.

In contrast, vitamins do not necessarily solve an obvious pain-point. Instead, they appeal to users’ emotional rather than functional needs.

Addictions, by definition, are self-destructive. Thus, it is irresponsible to make products that rely on creating and maintaining user addiction, since doing so would mean intentionally harming people.

A habit, on the other hand, is a behavior that can have a positive influence on a person’s life. Habits can be healthy or unhealthy, and you likely have several helpful habits you carry out throughout your day

Summary

• For some businesses, forming habits is a critical component to success, but not every business requires habitual user engagement
• When successful, forming strong user habits can have several business benefits including: higher customer lifetime value, greater pricing flexibility, supercharged growth, and a sharper competitive edge
• Habits cannot form outside the “Habit Zone,” where the behavior occurs with enough frequency and perceived utility
• Habit-forming products often start as nice-to-haves (vitamins) but once the habit is formed, they become must-haves (painkillers)
• Habit-forming products alleviate users’ pain by relieving a pronounced itch
• Designing habit-forming products is a form of manipulation. Product builders would benefit from a bit of introspection before attempting to hook users to make sure they are building healthy habits, not unhealthy addictions (more to come on this topic in chapter eight)

Trigger

Triggers come in two types: external and internal.

External Triggers

Habit-forming technologies start changing behavior by first cueing users with a call-to-action. External triggers are embedded with information, which tells the user what to do next.

Types of External Triggers 

1.      Paid Triggers

Advertising, search engine marketing, and other paid channels are commonly used to get users’ attention and prompt them to act. Paid triggers can be effective but costly ways to keep users coming back. Habit-forming companies tend not to rely on paid triggers for very long, if at all.

2.      Earned Triggers

For earned triggers to drive ongoing user acquisition, companies must keep their products in the limelight — a difficult and unpredictable task.

3.      Relationship Triggers

One person telling others about a product or service can be a highly effective external trigger for action. Unfortunately, some companies utilize viral loops and relationship triggers in unethical ways by deploying so-called “dark patterns.” When designers intentionally trick users into inviting friends or blasting a message to their social networks, they may see some initial growth, but it comes at the expense of the social currency of users, including their goodwill and trust. When people discover they’ve been duped, they vent their frustration and stop using the product.

4.      Owned Triggers

Owned triggers consume a piece of real-estate in the user’s environment. They consistently show up in daily life and it is ultimately up to the user to opt into allowing these triggers to appear.

Owned triggers are only set after users sign up for an account, submit their email address, install an app, opt into newsletters, or otherwise indicate they want to continue receiving communications. While paid, earned, and relationship triggers drive new user acquisition, owned triggers prompt repeat engagement until a habit is formed. Without owned triggers and users’ tacit permission to enter their attentional space, it is difficult to cue users frequently enough to change their behavior.

External triggers are only the first step. The ultimate goal of all external triggers is to propel users into and through the Hook Model so that, after successive cycles, they do not need further prompting from external triggers. When users form habits, they are cued by a different kind of trigger: internal triggers.

Internal Triggers

Internal triggers manifest automatically in your mind. Connecting internal triggers with a product is the brass ring of consumer technology

Emotions, particularly negative ones, are powerful internal triggers and greatly influence our daily routines. Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation.

Positive emotions can also serve as internal triggers, and may even be triggered by a need to satisfy something that is bothering us.

Users who find a product that alleviates their pain will form strong, positive associations with the product overtime.

In the case of internal triggers, the information about what to do next is encoded as a learned association in the user’s memory.

Building for Triggers

Products that successfully create habits soothe the user’s pain by laying claim to a particular feeling

People’s “declared preferences” — what they say they want — are far different from their “revealed preferences” — what they actually do.

By repeating ‘why?’ five times, the nature of the problem, as well as its solution, becomes clear."

Summary

• Triggers cue the user to take action and are the first step in the Hook Model
• Triggers come in two types — external and internal
• External triggers tell the user what to do next by placing information within the user’s environment
• Internal triggers tell the user what to do next through associations stored in the user’s memory
• Negative emotions frequently serve as internal triggers
• To build a habit-forming product, makers need to understand which user emotions may be tied to internal triggers and know how to leverage external triggers to drive the user to action.

 

Action

A habit is a behavior done with little or no conscious thought. The more effort — either physical or mental — required to perform the desired action, the less likely it is to occur.

Action vs. Inaction

there are three ingredients required to initiate any and all behaviors:

(1) The user must have sufficient motivation;

(2) The user must have the ability to complete the desired action; and

(3) A trigger must be present to activate the behavior.

The Fogg Behavior Model is represented in a formula, B = MAT, which represents that a given behavior will occur when motivation, ability, and a trigger are present at the same time and in sufficient degrees.

Motivation

It is defined as "the energy for action."

Ability

Fogg describes six “elements of simplicity” — the factors that influence a task’s difficulty. These are: -

1. Time - How long it takes to complete an action.
2. Money - The fiscal cost of taking an action.
3. Physical Effort - The amount of labor involved in taking the action
4. Brain Cycles - The level of mental effort and focus required to take an action
5. Social Deviance - How accepted the behavior is by others
6. Non-Routine - According to Fogg, “How much the action matches or disrupts existing routines.”

Motivation or Ability — Which Should You Increase First?

The answer is always to start with ability. The fact is, increasing motivation is expensive and time-consuming.

On Heuristics and Perception

The field of behavioral economics exposed exceptions to the rational model of human behavior. Even the notion that people always consume more if something costs less, for example, is a tendency, not an absolute. There are many counterintuitive and surprising ways companies can boost users’ motivation or increase their ability by understanding heuristics — the mental shortcuts we take to make decisions and form opinions.

The Scarcity Effect

Scarcity may signal something about the product. If there are fewer of an item, the thinking goes, it might be because other people know something you don’t.

The Framing Effect

The mind takes shortcuts informed by our surroundings to make quick and sometimes erroneous judgments. Perception can form a personal reality based on how a product is framed, even when there is little relationship with objective quality.

The Anchoring Effect

People often anchor to one piece of information when making a decision.

The Endowed Progress Effect

The endowed progress effect, a phenomenon that increases motivation as people believe they are nearing a goal.

Summary

• Action is the second step in The Hook
• The action is the simplest behavior in anticipation of reward
• For any behavior to occur, a trigger must be present at the same time as the user has sufficient ability and motivation to take action
• To increase the desired behavior, ensure a clear trigger is present, then increase ability by making the action easier to do, and finally align with the right motivator
• Every behavior is driven by one of three Core Motivators: seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, seeking hope and avoiding fear, seeking social acceptance while avoiding social rejection
• Ability is influenced by the six factors of time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routineness. Ability is dependent on users and their context at that moment
• Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts we take to make quick decisions. Product designers can utilize many of the hundreds of heuristics to increase the likelihood of their desired action

 

Variable Reward

The most habit-forming products and services utilize one or more of the three variable rewards types of tribe, hunt and self. In fact, many habit-forming products offer multiple variable rewards.

Understanding Rewards

The study revealed that 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

Understanding Variability

Habits help us conserve our attention to other things while we go about the tasks we perform with little or no conscious thought. However, when something breaks the cause-and-effect pattern we've come to expect — when we encounter something outside the norm — we suddenly become aware of it again. Novelty sparks our interest, makes us pay attention.

Rewards of the Tribe, Hunt, and Self

Important Considerations for Designing Reward Systems

• Variable Rewards Are Not a Free Pass
• Maintain a Sense of Autonomy- 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
• Beware of Finite Variability

Summary

• Variable Reward is the third phase of the Hook Model, and there are three types of variable rewards: tribe, hunt and 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 new behavior. Psychologists call this “reactance.” Maintaining a sense of user autonomy is a requirement for repeat engagement
• Experiences with finite variability become increasingly predictable with use and lose their appeal over time. Experiences that maintain user interest by sustaining variability with use exhibit infinite variability
• Variable rewards must satisfy users’ needs, while leaving them wanting to re-engage with the product

 

Investment

Changing Attitude

The frequency of a new behavior is a leading factor in forming a new habit. The study also found that the second most important factor in habit formation is a change in the participant’s attitude about the behavior.

• We Irrationally Value Our Efforts
• We Seek to be Consistent with Our Past Behaviors
• We Avoid Cognitive Dissonance
• Bits of Work
• Storing Value
• Content
• Data
• Followers
• Reputation
• Skill

Users are prompted to put something of value into the system, which increases the likelihood of them using the product and of successive passes through the hook cycle

Summary

• The Investment Phase is the fourth step in the Hook Model
• Unlike the Action Phase, which delivers immediate gratification, the Investment Phase is about the anticipation of rewards in the future
• Investments in a product create preference because of our tendency to overvalue our work, be consistent with past behaviors, and avoid cognitive dissonance
• Investment comes after the variable reward phase when users are primed to reciprocate
• Investments increase the likelihood of users returning by improving the service the more it is used. They enable the accrual of stored value in the form of content, data, followers, reputation or skill
• Investments increase the likelihood of users passing through the Hook again by loading the next trigger to start the cycle all over again

 

What Are You Going to Do with This?

You are now equipped to use the Hook Model to ask yourself these five fundamental questions for building effective hooks:

1. What do users really want? What pain is your product relieving? (Internal Trigger)
2. What brings users to your service? (External Trigger)
3. What is the simplest action users take in anticipation of reward, and how can you simplify your product to make this action easier? (Action)
4. Are users fulfilled by the reward, yet left wanting more? (Variable Reward)
5. 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 Morality of Manipulation

Ian Bogost, the famed game creator and professor, calls the wave of habit-forming technologies the “cigarette of this century” and warns of their equally addictive and potentially destructive side-effects. Manipulation is an experience crafted to change behavior

The Facilitator

The role of facilitator fulfills the moral obligation for entrepreneurs building a product they will use, and which they believe materially improves the lives of others. Facilitators “build the change they want to see in the world.”

The Peddler

Materially improving users’ lives is a tall order, and attempting to create a persuasive technology that you do not use yourself. Often the peddler's project results in a time-wasting failure because the designers did not fully understand their users. As a result, no one finds the product useful.

The Entertainer

Entertainment is art and is important for its own sake. Art provides joy, helps us see the world differently, and connects us with the human condition.

In this quadrant, the sustainable business is not purely the game, the song, or the book — profit comes from an effective distribution system for getting those goods to market while they’re still hot, and at the same time keeping the pipeline full of fresh releases to feed an eager audience.

The Dealer

Creating a product that the designer does not believe improves users’ lives and that he himself would not use is called exploitation. In the absence of these two criteria, presumably the only reason the designer is hooking users is to make a buck.

Summary

• To help designers of habit-forming technology assess the morality behind how they manipulate users, it is helpful to determine which of the four categories their work fits into. Are you a facilitator, peddler, entertainer, or dealer?
• Facilitators use their own product and believe it can materially improve people’s lives. They have the highest chance of success because they most closely understand the needs of their users
• Peddlers believe their product can materially improve people’s lives, but do not use it themselves. They must beware of the hubris and inauthenticity that comes from building solutions for people they do not understand
• Entertainers use their product, but do not believe it can improve people’s lives. They can be successful, but without making the lives of others better in some way, the entertainer’s products often lack staying power
• Dealers neither use the product nor believe it can improve people’s lives. They have the lowest chance of finding long-term success and often find themselves in morally precarious positions

 

Case Study: The Bible App

Summary

• The Bible app was far less engaging as a desktop website. The mobile interface increased accessibility and usage by providing frequent triggers
• The Bible app increases users' ability to take action by front-loading interesting content and providing an alternative audio version
• By separating the verses into small chunks, users find the Bible easier to read on a daily basis. Not knowing what the next verse will be adds a variable reward
• Every annotation, bookmark and highlight stores data (and value) in the app, further committing users.

 

Habit Testing and Where to Look for Habit-Forming Opportunities

Habit Testing

Habit Testing offers insights and actionable data to inform the design of habit-forming products. It helps clarify who your devotees are, what parts of your product are habit-forming (if any), and why those aspects of your product are changing user behavior.

The following steps assume you have a product, users, and meaningful data to explore.

Step 1: Identify

Once you know how often users should use your product, dig into the numbers and identify how many and which type of users meet this threshold. As a best practice, use cohort analysis to measure changes in user behavior through future product iterations.

Step 2: Codify

If at least five percent of your users don’t find your product valuable enough to use as much as you predicted they would, you may have a problem. Either you identified the wrong users or your product needs to go back to the drawing board.

Every product has a different set of actions that devoted users take; the goal of finding the Habit Path is to determine which of these steps is critical for creating devoted users so that you can modify the experience to encourage this behavior.

Step 3: Modify

Habit Testing is a continual process you can implement with every new feature and product iteration. Tracking users by cohort and comparing their activity to habitual users should guide how products evolve and improve.

Discovering Habit-forming Opportunities

“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 — himself

Nascent Behaviors

Many habit-forming technologies begin as “vitamins” — nice-to-have products that, over time, become must-have “painkillers” by relieving an itch or pain.

Looking for nascent behaviors among early adopters can often uncover valuable new business opportunities

Enabling Technologies

Identifying areas where a new technology makes cycling through the Hook Model faster, more frequent, or more rewarding provides fertile ground for developing new habit-forming products.

Interface Change

By looking forward to anticipating where interfaces will change, the enterprising designer can uncover new ways to form user habits.

Summary

• The Hook Model helps the product designer generate an initial prototype for a habit-forming technology. It also helps uncover potential weaknesses in an existing product’s habit-forming potential
• Once a product is built, Habit Testing helps uncover product devotees, discover which product elements are habit forming (if any), and why those aspects of your product change user behavior. Habit Testing includes three steps: identify, codify, and modify
• First, dig into the data to identify how people are behaving and using the product
• Next, codify these findings in search of habitual users. To generate new hypotheses, study the actions and paths taken by devoted users
• Lastly, modify the product to influence more users to follow the same path as your habitual users, and then evaluate results and continue to modify as needed
• Keen observation of one's own behavior can lead to new insights and habit-forming product opportunities
• Identifying areas where a new technology makes cycling through the Hook Model faster, more frequent or more rewarding provides fertile ground for developing new habit-forming products
• Nascent behaviors — new behaviors that few people see or do, and yet ultimately fulfill a mass-market need — can inform future breakthrough habit-forming opportunities
• New interfaces lead to transformative behavior change and business opportunities