How to Build Habit Forming Products
The book Hooked — How to Build Habit Forming Products, constructs a 4-step formula to build habit forming products.
Habit forming formula
- Trigger
- Investment
- Variable Reward
- Action
The formula is cyclical and each step feeds into the next cycle of user incentive and engagement. The process is designed to create a user experience that compliments the natural forming of psychological human behavior.
However, the formula is only the experiential part of the building habits. On a far more innate level, human psychology requires a few more considerations.
Nir Eyal goes on to describes human behavior as the product of motivation, ability, and a trigger.
Motivation
Motivation is a deeply psychological aspect to behavior design that facilitates and supports the user experience. It draws on the underlying habit instincts that drive the majority of human behavior.
A few of the deeper motivations for human behavior are laid out as seeking pleasure, avoiding pain, seeking hope, avoiding fear, seeking acceptance, and avoiding rejection.
The model identifies these triggers as the motivators to boost habits and influence or guide user behavior based on deeper psychological needs.
Ability
Ability focuses on the ease of use and removing barriers. Users can be put off or frustrated when they experience friction and difficulty when using a product.
Even one negative experience can make users run for the hills, but distilling complexities into accessible solutions allow users to more readily see the value in a product. This is especially true when a user approaches a reward.
Trigger
The trigger is responsible for eliciting a reward and serves as the foundation of a habit, when triggers are tripped again and again.
The trigger operates in tandem with rewards, such as the trigger of a Google search and the reward of variable results. Each cycle spurs human behavior and develops habits.
Dopamine has been implicated here as the drug of “more”. Thus, dopamine does not impel us to start doing anything, but it does compel us to keep doing something.
The result of continued behavior leads to habitual behavior.
Conclusion
All throughout the book, Nir Eyal lays out a formula to creating powerful habit forming experiences. However, he also leans on the foundational thought that all products solve a user problem and ultimately serve the user.
This is a powerful calling, as influential products have the capacity to take advantage of the user and thus require ethical guides. As designers seek make habit forming products, user-centered design is a must.
With great power comes great responsibility and it is essential to recognize the ethics of producing a product driven by habit.
