Ever wondered why you use Google instead of Explorer? Or why do you scroll through your Instagram feed late at night even though you should be sleeping? That’s because of apps and sites that made us stick to them. Seventy-nine percent of smartphone users check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning. It’s no surprise that we are deeply connected to it because they engineered it to do so. Technology in our generation drastically changed our way of living that will never be the same as before. Over time, it became embedded in our lives and compelled us to use it often. Technology plays a massive role in business. Just as much as the products we use daily, deliberately invented to create addictive qualities. These technological breakthroughs continue to improve and maintain the course of sustaining society. However, the system of modern world technology requires more user data and time. The industry uses this as an advantage to create behavior-changing products. If you’re a technology designer or product manager looking for a guidebook to create a product with a long-term attachment, then this is for you!
Nir Eyal’s “Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products” (Penguin,2014) explores the mechanics, economics, and ethics behind technology products that attract and keep us entranced. The Bible of tech designers hacking human psychology to increase customer engagement. “Instead of relying on expensive marketing, habit-forming companies link their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions.” His book has top-notched to Amazon’s #1 best-seller spot in product management and drifts the same in Industrial & Product Design and Applied Psychology. It also made it into the Top 1000 sellers across the entire site and received tremendous applause. Eyal created a four-part model for exploiting triggers, rewards, and other habit formation elements to manipulate user behavior systematically; he described the model as “a new superpower” for designers.
The Hook Model begins with the trigger. Take any social media platform as an example, such as Instagram. Imagine you’re at work having a lunch break, suddenly your phone buzzes. A follower just commented on your Instagram post. That notification serves as a trigger to open Instagram. After opening the app, perhaps you liked the comment. You’ve just taken action by interacting with it. Later on, you’re scrolling through your feed and found an exciting post or an entertaining video. You have just received a variable reward. Before eating your lunch, you took a pic and posted it in your story; that is the investment you make. One of the simple examples of the Hook Model and the author will broaden these parts throughout the book.
Designers are eager to create products that customers cannot live without; by applying these principles. Eyal does a brilliant job explaining how successful businesses engage their customers by developing and rewarding customer habits. “To change behavior, products must ensure the user feels in control. People must want to use the service, not feel they have to.” You can either create a new social media platform, a video game, or even an app; the Hooked Model can increase customers’ probability of returning to your product.
A person who has benefitted from Nir Eyal’s best practices is Payman Taei. An avid technologist who’s fond of new trends and tries to keep up with the ever-evolving internet. He’s always been frustrated about the lack of easy-to-use tools for non-designers, so he founded Visme. A non-designer-friendly and user-friendly tool to create infographics, presentations, and other visual content. The “Swiss Knife of Visual Content” is known for its convenient and precise features. Payman bootstrapped Visme to profitability within 18 months of launch, empowering over 1.8 million users of businesses, non-profits, and individuals from over 100 countries, including NASA, IBM, Manpower, and NBCUniversal.
Visme was in beta until it reached 1.3 million users. Payman always believed content creation should be quick and straightforward and balance ease of use and flexibility. Visme took years to get to where it is today; because to accomplish both without drastically affecting user experience. Their developers studied the customers’ psychology by collecting valuable feedback through tens of thousands of inquiries, emails, and hundreds of one-on-one live demos and screen recordings. In the book, Eyal used the Behavior Model where the users must be motivated enough and should be able to act with minimal effect. After reviewing thousands of presentations and collecting feedback from their users, Payman concluded that the best course of action was to allow users to search for the exact slides needed for their content in their update.
In 2018, Taei was in an interview with Nathan Latka. Payman mentioned he reads blogs more than he reads books. However, Nir Eyal’s Hooked: How To Build Habit-Forming Products is what he reads and picks up from time to time. Hence, we see a significant improvement in customer engagement.
Nir wrote Hooked to help others understand the heart of habit-forming technology. Generally, it goes well with tech designers, product managers, and startups. Nir made the book engaged and engrossed by providing plenty of right-to-life examples. He also created a guide to evaluate your product if it’s habit-forming after every chapter and the book’s end. Remember that applying these models and methods requires an explicit acknowledgment of the possible harms they can do if irresponsibly used. The sole purpose of the product is to keep us coming back for the right reasons.
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