Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Daniel Williams

My summary, notes, and opinions.

The Disclaimer

This article is a summary of the book Hooked by Nir Eyal. I wrote these notes to develop a better understanding of the ideas in the book. The ideas and examples used in this article are straight out of the book and should be attributed to Nir Eyal, the author. You can find the book for sale here if you’d like to read more in depth.

Hooked By Nir Eyal

The Introduction

Like every entrepreneur, I want to see the things I’ve built explode with growth and usage. I’ve found that the best way to achieve this goal is to research heavily into design psychology to understand why we use the products we use. Hooked has been one of my favourite books about this concept and scarily captures why we’re so enraptured by the products we just can’t stop using. Hooked explains the Hook Model, a product usage pathway that when traversed enough times, develops a subconscious habit of using a product.

The Hook Model

The Motive

Designing products to provoke positive habitual use is the best way to drive users to use our products more often and for longer. Creating a natural habit in users is achieved when a product is subconsciously first to mind when they encounter a problem that product can solve. So, following the definition of a habit, the users will start routinely using our products without conscious thought; just as they would not consciously think about brushing their teeth in the morning. This is great for us as entrepreneurs because our product becomes the number one solution for a problem users encounter in their daily lives. We can maximize the likelihood of a product becoming subconsciously first to mind by maximizing its use frequency and perceived utility. Take Google Search for example, it’s so useful and we use it so often that our subconscious reaction to the feeling of curiosity is to search on Google.

The Habit Zone

The Benefits

Creating positive habits in users increases the usage, flexibility, and user growth rate of a product. Usage is naturally increased through habit development in users while increased flexibility and growth result from these habits. I define flexibility through the ease at which a company can make changes to its product or raise its prices without user uproar. Hooked uses Coca Cola as an example stating that because drinking Coke is such an ingrained behavior in today’s society, Coca Cola has greater freedom to raise its prices without uproar. Another example of increased product flexibility due to habitual use can be seen in Free To Play video games. As players play the game more often and it becomes a part of their daily routine, they become more susceptible to paying money to gain advantages or perks in the game. User growth rate increases as a result of routine usage when users begin to share the product they habitually use with their peers. When our product becomes part of a user’s daily routine, he is likely to talk about it with his peers when asked “What’s new?”. We as product designers and developers are also given more and more opportunities to dynamically prompt the users to invite their friends as their usage grows. This can be seen through Facebook games rewarding players when the players send invites and requests to their friends. Another example is Uber giving ride discounts when a user gets a peer to sign up using his referral code. As users use a product more often and develop reliance, they become more inclined to send invites and referral codes to their friends.

The Struggle

Facilitating habitual use of our products is an extremely difficult process if there is already a viable solution to the problem we’re attempting to solve. Users with habits relating to one solution will not break their pre-existing loyalties even when another solution is better. Chances are that the design of a new superior product will differ from the current standard. If this design difference is too far from what users are used to, it will inhibit ease of access and discourage use. Learning a new interface or process takes mental effort and will cause users to view the new product as inferior simply because they are not used to it. This is why we must prioritize intuitive simplicity in our products, especially when attempting to compete with a pre-existing solution to our target problem. If our product is easier to learn and simpler to use than a competitor’s, user loyalties will change in our favour easily.

The Types of Products

Hooked puts products into two categories, painkillers and vitamins. Painkillers solve obvious problems and users can tell they’re working as soon as they take them. Vitamins appeal to the emotional feel good aspect of users’ personalities; they’re not sure if taking the vitamins actually makes any difference to their health but they feel good believing a difference is made. If we have a headache and don’t take any painkillers for it, we feel it for the whole day; If we miss our daily morning vitamin, our lives don’t really change. The best habit forming products are the solutions to the daily pains and itches in our lives; products where we can feel the relief to whatever pain we had. Painkillers and vitamins are both great businesses when solving certain problems, it depends on the situation to quantify the optimality of either. Some products and services initially appear as vitamins but then develop into painkillers after continued use. For example, the service Calm initially appears as a vitamin used to relax and feel good. However, with continued and habitual use Calm may become the only painkiller for some users to alleviate their stress build up. This concept from Hooked has really changed the way I think about startup ideas. I am thinking less about cool vitamins and more about my everyday pains that have no effortless painkiller.

The Types of Founders

I love startups. It’s my dream to become a successful founder. The ideas in Hooked are highly appealing to me because the Hook Model discussed in the book seems like the optimal way to grow and maintain a user-base. Hooked is about pure design psychology and the Hook Model definitely is definitely a form of user manipulation through design. Using such methods should be done with users’ best interests in mind or it’s just pure exploitation. Hooked goes over this point in ethics by labeling the four types of founders in its manipulation matrix as seen below.

The Manipulation Matrix

The Facilitator is the founder who would use their own product to bring positive value to their own lives. The Facilitator is the most likely to succeed out of the four founders as they understand the needs of their users through experiencing the same needs themselves. Facilitators are unlikely to build exploitative products as they wouldn’t want to harm themselves when they use their own products.

The Peddler is the founder who would not gain any value from using their own product yet still believes that the products target users will gain value. These founders are altruistic and usually don’t truly understand the problems they’re attempting to solve. This misunderstanding commonly causes Peddlers to launch the wrong products and fail. A hypothetical example of why a Peddler is not likely to succeed can be seen through the scenario of a professional chef conceptualizing a service like Github. The chef most likely doesn’t understand the true problems GitHub should solve as he hasn’t experienced these problems himself. Due to this disconnect, the chef will not be able to deliver a product that users truly need or want.

The Entertainer builds products that are simply meant for fun. Entertainers would use their own products knowing that there is no positive authentic value to be gained. The products created by Entertainers are things like video games, television, or time wasting apps. These kinds of products are not built for the long haul, their usage peaks and then deteriorates as our brains craves fresh and novel content.

The last and only negative type of founder is the Dealer. The Dealer attempts to exploit users by creating products offering no positive value that they themselves would not use. The goal of these product is nothing else but to generate profit for the Dealer. Examples include casinos, cartels, and slot machines.

My goal is to stay as close to the Facilitator type as possible. I want my products to improve the lives of users or at least make users genuinely happy. As someone with substantial ambitions, it’s interesting to think about upholding the moral obligation we as founders have to our users versus simply trying to grow our products as quickly as possible. As romantic as it sounds to create a highly-addictive hit product and get rich quick, this should not be done if users are being indirectly harmed. This leads me to think about Facebook and its targeted advertising. Although targeted ads will expose me to products I may actually want to buy, is Facebook using my information ethically? Is it even ethical to target me with advertisements? It seems as though founders must walk fine line between maximizing profits and maintaining a moral obligation to their users. As someone who is young, ambitious, and naive, I hope staying on the positive side of this line won’t be too difficult.

The Hook Model

Hooked describes the Hook Model in four parts: the trigger, the action, the variable reward, and the investment. The trigger is the pain, itch, or sensory input that triggers users to use the product. The action happens when the users engage with the product to look for a solution to their problem. The variable reward is the resultant solution or reward that stems for the action. The investment occurs after the variable reward and is the key to bringing users back consistently.

The Trigger

The first phase of the model is the internal or external trigger that prompts users to use a product. An external trigger is a sensory stimuli in the world that points users to commit a desired action with a product. An internal trigger is an emotional feeling that causes users to use the product that they acts as a painkiller to that feeling. External triggers can be thought of as advertisements, media coverage, word-of-mouth, app icons, notifications, or any kind of external sensory input referencing a product. An internal trigger can be thought of as an uncomfortable emotional feeling such as loneliness, insecurity, hunger, boredom, or any kind of annoying itch users may want to scratch. As users begin to habitually follow external triggers, they will begin to associate an internal trigger with the product itself. This association is most likely to form when users follow external triggers based present emotional feelings. With this in mind, external triggers should be sent when the user is most likely feeling the internal trigger a product is targeting. Following this strategy, users will begin to view the product as their solution to a particular intrinsic problem (internal trigger). This causes subconscious habit formation as users begin to use the product based on feeling the internal trigger alone.

A Trigger From AppleA Trigger From MediumA Trigger From UberEatsA Trigger From Pinterest

The Action

The second part of the model is the action, the phase that gives triggers meaning. Actions are most likely to occur when they are as easy and mindless as possible. A user should not have to think, contemplate, or work toward performing the action associated with a trigger. The user should just simply do. Actions result from motivation, ability, and a trigger. A user must have high enough motivation and high enough ability to accomplish an action when they are prompted by a trigger. Ability is the most important factor to maximize when prompting action. The easier the action is to accomplish, the less motivation a user will need to act. Inhibitors on actions should be minimized when planning user actions in the Hook Model. Hooked labels inhibitors as: time, money, physical effort, mental effort, social deviance, and non-routineness. These inhibitors should be reduced as much as possible to maximize conversion from triggers into actions and move users to the reward phase of the model.

User action can also be manipulated and expedited by taking advantage of three principles of psychology. These three principles are scarcity, framing, and endowed progress. We as humans instinctively place more value on products that appear scarce over products that appear in abundance. This perception can be taken advantage of to incite favourable user action. An example of this in practice is Amazon showing users remaining stock to purposefully add urgency to product purchases. Framing a product in certain contexts can alter the perceived value of that product. For example framing certain liquor brands as extremely high class can alter and increase perceived value. Framing can be taken advantage of to create unrequited user desire for products and thus raise profits. The endowed progress effect shows us that users are more likely to complete actions that they perceive as in progress. This effect stays true even when the effort to complete an action in progress is equal to the effort to start and finish an action. Facebook and LinkedIn take advantage of this concept when prompting for user information by starting the profile creation progress bar at 20%, even if no real progress has been made.

Action to Sign Up For AsanaAction to Start Using CalmAction to Sign Up For ShopifyLinkedIn Profile Progress BarAmazon Showing Their Current Stock

The Variable Reward

The third part of the method is the variable reward, the solution the users came for. Receiving a variable reward validates users’ actions and increases their motivation to act the next time they receive a trigger. The pleasure center of our brains activates not when we receive rewards, but rather in anticipation of receiving rewards. This information shows us that we act only to satisfy itches or cravings for rewards, not to actually receive the rewards themselves. With this knowledge in mind, incorporating variability to the rewards a user receives is extremely important to user retention. Once the rewards become predictable and we begin to expect exactly what we’re going to receive, it becomes far less pleasurable to anticipate these rewards. It’s like knowing exactly what we’re going to get for Christmas every single year, it just isn’t exciting at all.

When planning the design of reward systems, it is important to understand the rewards users naturally crave. Instinctively, we seek only a few very general rewards and feelings apart from simply surviving. Generally, our three natural drives are to feel socially connected, acquire material resources and information, and achieve mastery or completion of the tasks that are important to us. The most popular products target specific sub categories inside these inherent desires. For example, Tinder targets the sexual subcategory of wanting to feel socially connected while Instagram targets the general drive of wanting to feel socially connected. With these instinctual desires in mind, it is important that a product provides the rewards users genuinely desire. The products most likely to influence our lives and alter our daily behaviors are the products that nobody makes us use. Catering a product to what the users want to do rather than what we as the designers want them to do lets the habits we’re attempting to facilitate occur far more naturally. If we design with user autonomy in mind, they’ll easily and cooperatively guide themselves through each Hook cycle as we send them triggers.

Tinder RewardMedium RewardPinterest RewardInstagram Reward

The Investment

The last and most important part of the Hook Model is the investment phase. This product-user interaction is what brings users back. Getting users to invest in a product sets the groundwork to send future external triggers to bring them back. We can get users to invest in our products by getting the them to commit content, data, follows, or skill. Users commit content any time they post articles on Medium, post photos to Instagram, or comment posts on Facebook. Investments of content not only tie the users to a product but create a pathway to send further targeted external triggers based on activity this content receives. Here are some examples of companies sending external triggers based on previous user investment: Facebook sending push notifications for likes or activity, Twitter emailing a user when there are posts from people who that user follows, and UberEats sending users coupons to restaurants that they have previously ordered from. Just take a look at your email and you’ll notice the constant flood of external triggers we are constantly being hit with in our daily lives, and we’re the ones who gave them permission!

Twitter Investment 1Twitter Investment 2Twitter Investment 3

Receiving followers and reputation on the sites users frequent ties them heavily to these services. Users will feel the intrinsic need to grow these followings and feel a responsibility to provide content to their followers. This will cause them to come back again and again and invest more and more content in a positive feedback loop that ultimately hooks users.

Instagram Investment

The last investment users can make into products is their time. Users spend a lot of time learning how to use products and instinctually, we as humans store far more value in the things we’ve committed time and effort to than the things we haven’t. Based on this principle, users can develop ties to products and services simply by spending the time to learn and master them. One of the best examples Hooked uses to describe this process is the time users put into developing skill in Adobe Photoshop. This skill building process ties them heavily to Photoshop in a positive feedback loop and it becomes their first to mind product for photo editing.

Investment in a product brings users back again and again because of three principles in human psychology. The first principle is our need to stay consistent with past behavior. We like to be consistent in our past and present actions to develop order. By allowing a user to make even a small investment in a product, they’ll immediately become more receptive to imitating their past behavior and making more or greater investments into the product. This positive feedback loop is proportional to usage. As users make larger or more frequent investments, they’ll use the products more.

The second psychological principle is the irrational value we place on our efforts. The greater investment of effort we make into something, the higher value that object has to us. Hooked calls this the IKEA effect because we value cheap IKEA furniture much higher than we should after we’ve spent so much time and effort building it ourselves. The user perceives their relationship with our product as a two way friendship, thinking that the value they get out will be equal to what they put in. The user has the perception that the more content, effort, and time they put into a product, the more the product will benefit them and cater to their needs. As product designers, we should attempt to make this metaphor a reality and reward users for using our products. Even if a product does not reciprocate the value a user puts in the, the user will rationalize their efforts and still place greater value on the product.

Naturally, we try our absolute hardest to avoid cognitive dissonance and rationalize our actions. We do this by using the two above principles to think that because we put our time, money, and effort into a product, it must be valuable (even when it is not). Avoiding cognitive dissonance can be described in layman’s terms as avoiding conflicting ideas. Based on the knowledge that users will naturally rationalize their actions, we know that by getting a small investment from them, they will attempt to rationalize their investment and value the product more. This constant increase in perceived value of the product will smooth habit development as the users continue to go through cycles of the Hook Model.

The Conclusion

In conclusion, I absolutely love the ideas in Hooked because they are brutally effective and I want people to use the products I build. Hooked has opened my eyes to how great products become addicting and the copious amount of external triggers I receive in daily life. With this new vision of product design, I feel unsettled when I notice the ways I am being psychologically manipulated by products I use in my day to day life. An example of this is in Spotify where as a free user I am constantly going through cycles of the Hook Model. I receive external triggers when new music is released by the artists I follow. I initiate action on these triggers when I follow the emails to my new music playlist. I receive variable reward based on whether or not I like the music I receive. I make investments through favoriting playlists, giving my music preferences, and sharing music with my friends. Spotify has become my first to mind music application. I am hooked.

If you’ve gotten this far in my summary of and notes on Hooked, I really appreciate you reading the whole thing and if you have any questions feel free to buy the book here or email me at ddgwilli@uwaterloo.ca!

Hooked: Habit-Forming Products was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Hooked: Habit-Forming Products

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