Hooked

“Cognitive psychologists define habits as, “automatic behaviors triggered by situational cues:” things we do with little or no conscious thought. [v] The products and services we use habitually alter our everyday behavior, just as their designers intended. [vi] Our actions have been engineered.”

“Instead of relying on expensive marketing, habit-forming companies link their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions. [vii] A habit is at work when users feel a tad bored and instantly open Twitter. They feel a pang of loneliness and before rational thought occurs, they are scrolling through their Facebook feeds. A question comes to mind and before searching their brains, they query Google. The first-to-mind solution wins.”

“A trigger is the actuator of behavior — the spark plug in the engine. a website link, or the app icon on a phone.”

“The exciting juxtaposition of relevant and irrelevant, tantalizing and plain, beautiful and common, sets her brain’s dopamine system aflutter with the promise of reward. Now she’s spending more time on Pinterest, hunting for the next wonderful thing to find. Before she knows it, she’s spent 45 minutes scrolling.”

“Having a greater proportion of users returning to a service daily, dramatically increases Viral Cycle Time for two reasons: First, daily users initiate loops more often (think tagging a friend in a Facebook photo); second, more daily active users means more people to respond and react to each invitation. The cycle not only perpetuates the process — with higher and higher user engagement, it accelerates it.”

“Remember and Share

• Variable Reward is the third phase of the Hook Model, and there are three types of variable rewards: tribe, hunt and self.
• Rewards of the tribe is the search for social rewards fueled by connectedness with other people.
• Rewards of the hunt is the search for material resources and information.
• Rewards of the self is the search for intrinsic rewards of mastery, competence, and completion.
• When our autonomy is threatened, we feel constrained by our lack of choices and often rebel against doing a new behavior. Psychologists call this “reactance.” Maintaining a sense of user autonomy is a requirement for repeat engagement.
• Experiences with finite variability become increasingly predictable with use and lose their appeal over time. Experiences that maintain user interest by sustaining variability with use exhibit infinite variability.
• Variable rewards must satisfy users’ needs, while leaving them wanting to re-engage with the product.”