Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal
Creating habits by following the 4 step hook model of Trigger → Action → Reward → Investment, However, there is a fine line between creating a positive habit and negative addiction. To stay on the positive side, we need to help users to achieve something they already want.
My recommendation: 8/10
This book does a good job of briefly explaining how popular apps are using human psychology for getting users to keep coming back to their apps. It is mostly based on creating habits by following the 4 step hook model of Trigger (external ads, influencers or internal feelings like loneliness, boredom) → Action (open app, check the feed, log) → Reward (low and high rewards to create unknown curiosity) → Investment (following users, creating content, earning reputation...). There is a fine line between creating a positive habit and negative addiction. To stay on the positive side, we need to help users to achieve something they already want.
Notes:
Gourville claims that for new entrants to stand a chance, they can't just be better, they must be nine times better. Why such a high bar? Because old habits die hard and new products or services need to offer dramatic improvements to shake users out of old routines.
The nontransferable value created and stored inside these services discourages users from leaving.
Habit-forming products alleviate users' pain by relieving a pronounced itch.
The ultimate goal of a habit-forming product is to solve the user's pain by creating an association so that the user identifies the company's product or service as the source of relief.
To successfully simplify a product; we must remove obstacles that stand in the user's way. Ac- cording to the Fogg Behavior Model, the ability is the capacity to do a particular behaviour.
Identify what the user is missing. What is making it difficult for the user to accomplish the desired action?
Make your product so simple that users already know how to use it, and you've got a winner.
Rewards must fit into the narrative of why the product is used and align with the user's internal triggers and motivations.
A recent study found social factors were the most important reasons people used the service and recommended it to others.
By maintaining the users' freedom to choose, products can facilitate the adoption of new habits and change behaviour for good.
To change behaviour, products must ensure the users feel in control. People must want to use the service, not feel they have to.
Products utilizing infinite variability stand a better chance of holding on to users' attention, while those with finite variability must constantly reinvent themselves just to keep pace.
The big idea behind the investment phase is to leverage the user's understanding that the service will get better with use (and personal investment). Like a good friendship, the more effort people put in, the more both parties benefit.
The stored value users put into the product increases the likelihood they will use it again in the future and comes in a variety of forms.
Investing in following the right people increases the value of the product by displaying more relevant and interesting content in each user's Twitter feed. It also tells Twitter a lot about its users, which in turn improves the service overall.
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.
If at least 5 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.
You are looking for a Habit Path--a series of similar actions shared by your most loyal users.
As usage increased over time, so did customers' willingness to pay. Libin noted that after the first month, only 0.5 percent of users paid for the service; however, this rate gradually increased. By month thirty-three, 11 percent of users had started paying. At month forty-two, a remarkable 26 percent of customers were paying for something they had previously used for free.
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