Hooked Resources & Top Articles on User Behavior
In an age of ever-increasing distractions, quickly creating customer habits is an important characteristic of successful products. How do companies create products people use every day? What are the secrets of building services customers love? How can designers create products compelling enough to “hook” users?
We’re on the precipice of a new era of the web. As infinite distractions compete for our attention, companies are mining user behavior analytics to master new tactics to stay relevant in users’ minds and lives. Today, just amassing millions of users is no longer good enough. Companies increasingly find that their economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create. But as some companies are just waking up to this new reality, others are already cashing in.
Manufacturing Desire
But how do companies create a connection with the internal cues needed to form habits? The answer: they manufacture desire by guiding users through a series of experiences designed to create habits. I call these experiences “Hooks,” and the more often users run through them, the more likely they are to self-trigger. User behavior analytics plays a role here as well.
I wrote Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products to help others understand what is at the heart of habit-forming technology. The book highlights common patterns I observed in my career in the video gaming and online advertising industries.
Trigger
The trigger is the actuator of a behavior—the spark plug in the Hooked Model. Triggers come in two types: external and internal. Habit-forming technologies start by alerting users with external triggers like an email, a link on a web site, or the app icon on a phone. By cycling continuously through these hooks, users begin to form associations with internal triggers, which become attached to existing behaviors and emotions. Soon users are internally triggered every time they feel a certain way. The internal trigger becomes part of their routine behavior and the habit is formed.
Action
After the trigger comes the intended action. Here, companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior – motivation and ability. To increase the odds of a user taking the intended action, the behavior designer makes the action as easy as possible, while simultaneously boosting the user’s motivation. This phase of the Hook draws upon the art and science of usability design to ensure that the user acts the way the designer intends.
Variable Reward
What separates Hooks from a plain vanilla feedback loop is their ability to create wanting in the user. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don’t create desire. Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies use to hook users. Introducing variability multiplies the effect, creating a frenzied hunting state, activating the parts associated with wanting and desire. Although classic examples include slot machines and lotteries, variable rewards are prevalent in habit-forming technologies as well.
Investment
The last phase of the Hook is where the user is asked to do bit of work. This phase has two goals as far as the behavior engineer is concerned. The first is to increase the odds that the user will make another pass through the Hook when presented with the next trigger. Second, now that the user’s brain is swimming in dopamine from the anticipation of reward in the previous phase, it’s time to ask the user to give some combination of time, data, effort, social capital or money.
The investment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-around. Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all commitments that improve the service for the user. These investments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the Hook.
Super Power
A reader recently wrote to me, “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a super power.” He’s right. And under this definition, habit design is indeed a super power. If used for good, habits can enhance people’s lives with entertaining and even healthful routines. If used to exploit, habits can turn into wasteful addictions. Companies need to know how to harness the power of Hooks to improve peoples’ lives, while consumers need to understand the mechanics of behavior engineering to protect themselves from unwanted manipulation.
(This is an excerpt from a prior post. The original post can be found here.)
Please feel free to check out some of my resources and articles related to the Hooked Model below. You can also find additional articles about the Hooked Model and Consumer Psychology here.
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Top Articles and Resources for Hooked
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Best Productivity Tools: 6 That Stuck With Me
Since writing Indistractable, I’m often asked what tools and apps I personally use to get the most out of my day.
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The loudest voices in our culture today say yes. During a conversation about technology on his mega-popular podcast, Joe Rogan said, “We’ve got a real addiction problem in this country.” In a congressional hearing in 2021, U.S. representative Kathy Castor of Florida said that apps are “designed to be addictive.” During his 2020 presidential campaign run, Andrew Yang said, “Our kids unfortunately are getting addicted to smartphones.”
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It seems we’re all checking our phones constantly these days. But all that time spent on our phones leaves little time for anything else. We need time to think in order to come up with novel solutions to our business challenges.
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You don’t have to agree on everything, but you do have to be aligned. Divorce sucks. My friend is going through one right now. The worst part is that he saw it coming. And he’s not the first of my friends to tell me they ignored the warning signs of an eventual breakup. Although there isn’t a surefire way to predict which relationships will last, there are some guidelines anyone entering or in a committed relationship should be aware of. They involve having honest discussions to make sure you’re seeing eye to eye with your partner about hot-button issues.
Why People See Problems Where There Are None
Our baseline dissatisfaction is what motivates us, but we must harness it correctly. Do you often experience a strange malaise, that feeling of blah-ness you can’t quite explain? The good news is you’re not alone. You may be surprised to learn that, although people don’t often admit it, everyone’s default state is dissatisfaction; it’s how we evolved.
3 Ways to Filter Your Friends
When it comes to friendships, quality matters more than quantity. Thirty-six percent of Americans say they are “seriously lonely.” For many people, the solution may seem to be to go out and get more friends. Yet one study shows that when it comes to friendships, less is more. But how do you decide which friendships to invest in and which to let go of?
How Products Shape Our Mindsets and Change Our Reality
When I first started using the Strava app, my weekly running mileage skyrocketed. Nothing had changed other than my perception of how much running was “enough.” Lots of people in my feed were clocking 40 to 60 miles a week, and suddenly my 20-mile weekly average seemed negligible. Here’s how the products we use can shape our perception of reality and, as a result, change our actions and lives—all by leveraging the much-studied yet still mysterious power of mindsets.
How to Prevent Burnout
Discover 21 ways to prevent burnout and recognize when to seek professional help. Take proactive steps to maintain your well-being.
Fear of Being Alone is Natural. Embrace It.
Are you afraid of being alone? Well, you’re not alone in that. In a 2014 survey of 2,000 adults, one in three said they fear being alone: 40% of women and 35% of men. Ironically, the more we subvert quality alone time with distraction, the more we cripple our capacity for being alone—and stoke our fear about it. Giving in to fear of being alone perpetuates a cycle of loneliness.
Get Comfortable With Being Uncomfortable
Humans have an evolutionary need to be challenged—to feel discomfort. We may not enjoy whatever discomfort we expose ourselves to in the moment—be it a physical, mental, or spiritual hardship—but doing so is key to personal growth and even just plain contentment. However, if we’re to take that first step outside of our comfort zone, we have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Surprise! There’s a Right Way to Multitask
Everyone knows that multitasking destroys productivity, right? Haven’t we all seen studies and read articles telling us that it’s impossible to do two things at once? In some ways, that’s true. Lucky for you, I developed a method to multitask the right way. I call it “multichannel multitasking.”
Can Someone with ADHD be ‘Indistractable’?
Does my book Indistractable work for the ADHD brain? It’s a question I’ve been getting a lot lately. Though I didn’t specifically write the book for people with ADHD, I wanted to get an honest opinion from an expert. I reached out to Caitlin O’Brient Bauer, who was diagnosed with ADHD at age 8 and is now a certified ADHD coach.
Planning a Vacation Is Practice for a Great Life
When I was 13, my parents and I went to Europe on vacation. It was miserable. My father wanted to hit all the major sites, while my mother just wanted to relax. Because they couldn’t agree on what to do, none of us got the vacation we’d hoped for.
Why It’s So Hard to Shake the Way People Make You Feel
Good or bad, our feelings color how we see people. In psychology, a “trapped prior” is a perception of reality that’s colored, or trapped, by past experiences. If not treated, trapped priors can turn into debilitating phobias.
Don’t Write About What You Already Know — Instead, I’m “Writing To Learn”
For me, writing is a wonderful way to go deep on a problem I’m struggling with. As my friend and fellow author, Gretchen Rubin told me, “Research is me search.” When I’m struggling with one thing or another, my first step is to think through the problem myself. But there are still problems so tricky that they take even more thinking through.
Are We Really Having Fun at Bars or Just Escaping Reality?
For many people, bars and booze serve as the original Tinder or Grinder, a socially acceptable way to shop for a mate. But not everyone in a bar is on the prowl. Some will tell you they go out for drinks to just unwind and have fun. That’s certainly true, but is there a deeper reason?
The 6 Behavioral Design Books That Paved My Career
I’m surprised I ended up an author. I’m dyslexic, English is not my first language, and writing was always my worst subject in school. Just as surprising as my unlikely path are the mix of books that got me here.
The 4 Steps to Becoming Indistractable
Overcoming distraction is the struggle of our time. Here are 4 simple steps to manage your wandering mind.
Why You’re Never Going to Be Satisfied With Life
Why are we perpetually restless and unsatisfied? The truth is, we’re not wired to feel content or satisfied. Here’s why that’s a good thing.
How a Morning Brain Dump Helps You Stay on Track All Day
Even when something is weighing on your mind, taking a minute to write it out can help you get the most out of your day. Here’s how…
The Key to Behavior Change is Identity Change
One of the most effective ways to change your behavior is to change your identity. I don’t mean joining the CIA or a witness protection program, or adopting an alter ego. I mean, rather, changing the way you see yourself.
How to Make Sure Working From Home Doesn’t Mean You’re Always Working
When large swaths of the U.S. population transitioned to work from home in March 2020, they lost that critical physical boundary between their work domain and other life domains. As a result, those facets of life have bled into each other, with work often taking precedence.
Planning Ahead Is the Key to Living With More Spontaneity
It seems counterintuitive, but spontaneity can’t happen without a bit of advanced planning. Only people with spare time can be spontaneous.
To Fix Your Problems, Find the Root Cause
Do you play pool? I sure don’t. But I know enough about the game to use it as a metaphor for the hidden reasons we don’t do what we say we will.
One Question to Help You Get More Done
It was 9 a.m. and Wendy, a freelance marketing consultant, knew exactly what she needed to do for the next hour: be in her office chair to write new client proposals, the most important task of her day. As she held her coffee mug with both hands and took a sip, a fantastic addition to the proposal entered her head. “This is going to be great!” she thought to herself. But before she had a chance to write down the idea — “Ping!” Her phone buzzed with a notification.
The Pursuit of ‘Flow’ Is Overrated
The idea of flow is considered by many to be the epitome of productivity. Also known as “being in the zone” or “hitting your stride,” flow captivates us with its promise of becoming so absorbed in what we’re doing that we tackle tasks effortlessly. That magical zone is great when you can find it. But what happens when you can’t?