Companies are now realizing that their survival depends on strength of habits they can form with their product
First-to-mind solutions are now winning (Facebook, Twitter, Google)
Hook cycle:
Trigger: external or internal triggers begin to associate with another
Action: behaviour done in anticipation of reward
Variable reward: needed to create cravings. Variability multiplies this
Investment: user puts something into system that seems to improve system for next time
Access + data + speed = more habit-forming world
NOTE: each chapter has series of practical questions that are worthy exercises for product building
The Habit Zone
Habits: brain takes shortcuts and stops actively deliberating on next step
This is useful for businesses as they can mold human behavior to use product without overt call-to-actions
Habit building is only really needed for companies that have products that require ongoing, unprompted user engagement
Habits drive higher customer lifetime value (CLTV), can be used to create flexible prices, creates brand evangelists, less susceptible to competition
Decrease viral cycle time, which is the amount of time it takes for a user to get another user on to the product
Daily users is a great accelerant
Products capable of altering long-term behaviour are incredibly rare because killing old habits is really difficult. These new habits must happen often
To convert events that happen infrequently into habits, you need to create high utility
Amazon did this really well by becoming the one-stop shop and even advertising competitor prices on their website
There is no universal timescale to create habits: each business takes own time
Build painkillers, not vitamins. Painkillers are addictive
More like solving itches than actual pain. Build itchkillers. Social networks are not solving a huge problem, but they are scratching some itch
A lot of habit-forming products migrate from vitamins to painkillers
Trigger
Habits are built off triggers
External triggers: external stimuli embedded with information that tells user what to do next
Information can be implicit (like a button) or explicit (text/visuals)
Paid triggers: ads, but quite costly and unsustainable if high churn
Earned triggers: require time invesment, like media or viral videos. Often not very long lasting
Relationship triggers: use relationship networks to trigger behavior (eg. Clubhouse invites). If used unethically, can actually cost social currency
Owned triggers: own a part of user’s attention, through app icon or email
External triggers must lead into internal triggers
Internal triggers: coupled with emotion, thought or existing routine
Negative emotions are often powerful triggers and can be minor. We use products to scratch/cure the itch
Information on what to do next is coded within the mind as part of internal trigger, but this association may take time
To build products for triggers, you need to deeply understand the user’s problems and habits
First: identify painpoint in emotional terms and look at other successful habit-forming products. Focus on what the user does rather than what they wish they do. Look for the ‘whys’ behind the action (5 why method) they take to understand core emotions and write narratives in the shoes of a user
Instagram uses photos as external relationship trigger while the app icon itself becomes an owned trigger. Media coverage and App Store placement are earned triggers. After lots of use, Instagram is associated with FOMO, leading to strong habits
Action
The trigger to the product is useless without action. This action must cost minimal mental effort, otherwise it won’t be done
Fogg Behaviour Model: behavior occurs if motivation, ability and trigger are present at the same time
Motivation is basically potential for action. Three core motivators: seek pleasure, seek hope, seek social acceptance
This is necessary to translate trigger to action
Ability: make the action as simple as possible and remove as many steps to get from user has trigger to user does action.
Simplify via time, money, physical effort, brain cycles (mental effort & focus), social deviance, non-routine (match existing routines as much as possible)
Find the scarcest resource above and simplify
Examples: Google + Facebook OAuth, embeddable tweets, quick search from Google, taking pictures from lock-screen on iPhone, infinite scroll
Start with ability since building out motivation is time-consuming and expensive
Scarcity effect: scarcity acts as a signal so people value scarce products more
Framing effect: context of action influences greatly
Anchoring effect: use one piece of information when making decisions (eg. discounts at stores makes people buy more because they think they are getting a deal)
Endowed progress effect: create illusion that you have already completed a part of the action and people motivated to complete whole thing
Variable Reward
What draws us to act is not the reward itself but the anticipation of the reward
Products must always have an ongoing degree of novelty, so variability is pretty important
Variable rewards come in three types:
Tribe: we crave social validation. Social networks use variable content/engagement from users to create more variable reward
Hunt: we crave getting resources. If these resources are variable (eg. gambling machines), it becomes particularly sticky
Self: driven to overcome obstacles, even just for the satisfaction doing so
Understand what reward truly matters to users (social validation from Quora vs. money from Mahalo) and if you are actually scratching the user’s itch
Make the reward more frequent (eg. Mailbox has more frequent Inbox 0 moments by smartly moving emails into smaller folders)
Make sure that rewards are not overtly manipulating users, otherwise autonomy is broken and users are angry
Reinforce user’s freedom to choose, which leads to sticky products
Naturally, users will get bored with variable rewards so make sure the product is infinitely variable
Investment
Investments can change our attitude towards habits, which create loop. This is because investment causes people to place higher value in product
IKEA effect: we irrationally value things that we have invested in as higher
Little investments can lead to bigger changes in behaviour as we want to stay consistent with past behaviour
Humans try to minimize cognitive dissonance as much as we can
You can use above three points to influence users to put something into product to make them use it again. This must come after reward
If the product becomes more useful with increasing investment, then it will be a great end to the habit loop
These become a moat as people cannot imagine how much time it takes for a come-up product to reach the level of utility as another product because long periods of investment is needed
Data, reputation, skill and content stores these investments
Just like the action phase, the Investment phase must consider if the investment has sufficient motivation and ability from user
Set future triggers in Investment phase, which shortens habit cycle
Ex: Snapchat’s communication method bakes in next trigger within investment of sending picture to friend
What Are You Going to Do With This?
Power to build manipulative products should be used with extreme caution
Ask two questions: would you use this product? Does it materially improve a user’s life?
Facilitator: usually facilitating some healthy habit
Don’t justify your answers, just answer truthfully, unless you are considering usage at different points of your life (although the questions don’t become that accurate)
You want your product to be in this sector
Protect users who are using product too much
Peddler: often products that attempt to make something more fun, but actually doesn’t provide a lot of value
Much harder to develop user empathy needed to develop features
Entertainer: this is important for its own sake
These products usually tend to fade out over time
Dealer: actively harmful
People do not have the mental antibodies to protect themselves against this behaviour
Habit Testing & Opportunities
The Hook Model is only a guideline. Every single product will have a separate way of creating a habit, so you need to continously experiment
Testing habits:
Step 1 - Identify:
Define what is a devoted user in terms of app usage.
Then look at the data and identify how many actually meet this threshold and the type of people that do (cohort analysis)
Step 2 - Codify:
Define a goal of how many hooked users you want (start off at 5%)
If you don’t have 5% of users habitually using your product, you either looked at the wrong users or your product needs work
Codify the steps for hooked users to understand how they got hooked
Create the habit path by looking at all parts of the funnel
Step 3 - Modify:
Revisit product to strengthen habit path
Habits are not the be-all and end-all for products. You need to create product-market fit and a sound business model to actually succeed
Look at opportunities in your own life to make a facilitator product
Other opportunities to ‘habitify’:
Nascent behaviours: initially start out as toys and vitamins, but turn into powerful pain killers
Enabling technologies: new technologies that make existing behavious easier. Look out for new infrastructure
Interface change: look at how people change their behaviours when technology changes
