Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Audrey Mothu

Hooked ‘How to build Habit-forming products’ by Nir Eyal

A quick summary to get you up-to-date : Hooked is a book first published in 2013. Its author, Nir Eyal worked in the video gaming and advertising industries.

Why you need to read it :

If you want to have a better understanding of product designing for users and how to use items from gamification to make your product useful, you need to read it.

Hooked described us through 4 phases how to make your product more engaging, it will give you many examples of products success and failures that helps you understand user psychology.

The hook model :

Nyr Eyal ‘Hooked’

Trigger : Associate your product with your user’s needs. Emails, notifications, an app icon can be triggers for the users. But they will be effective only if the user allows them to be there and if he finds them useful.

Action : Leverage your users to invest their time in your product by giving the right trigger. Make your product the easiest as possible to use in order to avoid confusion.

Variable reward : Turn an (painful) action into an engaging experience. To do so, rewarding your users for their actions, engaging them into a social community are effective ways to form habits. Recognition from peers, infinite possibilities of actions and rewards will keep your users interested and engaged.

Investment : To form long-term habits, you’ll have to gain your users’ trust and turn their actions into everyday habits.

Make users load the next trigger and prompt them to put something of value in the product. For example, Linkedin motivated its users to add professionals experiences, Pinterest motivated its users to pin their favourites items — . Users value their efforts and if they invest in your product, it’s harder to switch to a competitor’s product.

N. Eyal reminds us that whatever you’re building, it doesn’t make sense if you don’t believe in it. If you don’t think that it will help people or if you wouldn’t use your product, what reasons would your users have to trust it ?

‘How to Win Friends and Influence People in the digital age’ by Dale Carnagie & associates

Dale Carnegie was an American writer and lecturer. He was a pioneer in corporate training and the developper of courses in self-improvement. One of the core ideas in his book is that it’s possible to change other people’s behavior by changing one’s behavior toward them.

This book is an adaptation of the original ‘How to won friend and influence people’ published in 1936.

Why you need to read it :

This book is deeply humanist. The book’s chapters stated pillars like listening , positive thinking , empathise as core values for any company.

‘How to make friends and influence people’ book’s cover

“It works because he is talking about basic human characteristics: don’t lie, be forthright and pleasant. Facebook and Twitter have speeded up communication but they have not completely changed it,” said Ed Zitron, of Manhattan-based TriplePoint PR, specialized in digital media.

Make a lasting impression : In order to make a mark, you have to know your users. Paying close attention to them is not a waist of time; giving them personal feedback about their post, listening to their demands and engaging through a positive communication will give your product a positive image. It’s more likely that your users will support and make grow your community if they feel they are part of a positive and engaging adventure.

Deserving people’s trust (and keep it): On long-term, a polite negotiation is more effective than arguing for selfish reasons. With social media, it’s easy to make a quick reply to a tweet you don’t agree with; but even if you’re right, a friendly discussion is better than a truncated argument. You will hurt your interlocutor’s ego and let a bad image out of it. Emphasise with your interlocutor and react with kindness.

Leading change : Acknowledge the value of every person you work with. It will develop a climate of confidence and provides a comfort level for the discussion. To know better your organization, you have to know people that works in it.Ask them questions about their jobs, and you will discover keys to optimize your management and make your employees happier. People will be more wiling to accept change if they feel like they are part of the decision process.

Books on user’s behaviour and engagement in social media was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Books on user’s behaviour and engagement in social media

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