79% of smartphone owners check their device within fifteen minutes of waking up every morning

One-third of Americans say they would rather give up sex than lose their cell phones

Habits as 'automatic behaviors triggered by situational cues': things we do with little or no conscious thought

Teams can profoundly change behavior by guiding users through a series of experiences called hooks. The more often users run through these hooks, the more likely they are to form habits

Through consectutive Hook cycles, successful products reach their ultimate goal of unprompted user engagement, bringing users back repeatedly, without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging

The Hook Model: 1. External Trigger. 2. Action. 3. Variable Reward. 4. Investment 5. Internal Trigger

A trigger is the actuator of behavior. Triggers come in two types: external and internal.

Habit-forming products start by alerting users with external triggers like an email, a web site link, or the app icon on the phone

By cycling through successive hooks, users begin to form associations with internal triggers, which attach to existing behaviors and emotions

When users start to automatically cue their next behavior, the new habit becomes part of their everyday routine

Following the trigger comes the action: the behavior done in anticipation of a reward

Companies leverage two basic pulleys of human behavior to increase the likelihood of an action occurring: the ease of performing an action and the psychological motivation to do it

What distinguishes the Hook Model from a plain vanilla feedback loop is the Hook's ability to create a craving. Feedback loops are all around us, but predictable ones don't create desire

Add some variability to the mix and voilà, intrigue is created

Levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine surge when the brain is expecting a reward. Introducing variability multiplies the effect, creating a focused state, which suppresses the areas of the brain associated with judgment and reason while activating the parts associated with wanting and desire

The investment occurs when the user puts something into the product of service such as time, data, effort, social capital, or money

The investment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-around. Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all investments users make to improve their experience. These commitments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the Hook cycle

Habit-forming products can do far more good than harm. Choice architecture offers techniques to influence people's decisions and affect behavioral outcomes. The practice should be 'used to help nudge people to make better choices (as judged by themselves).' This book teaches innovators how to build products to help people do the things they already want to do but, for lack of a solution, don't do

When harnessed correctly, technology can enhance lives through healthful behaviors that improve our relationships, make us smarter, and increase productivity

Hooks connect the user's problem with a company's solution frequently enough to form a habit

The convergence of access, data, and speed is making the world a more habit-forming place

Businesses that create customer habits gain a significant competitive advantage

The Hook Model describes an experience designed to connect the user's problem to a solution frequently enough to form a habit

The Hook Model has four phases: trigger, action, variable reward, and investment

The nature of ingrained habits guide nearly half our daily actions

Habits are one of the ways the brain learns complex behaviors. Habits give us the ability to focus our attention on other things by storing automatic responses in the basal ganglia, an area of the brain associated with involuntary actions

A business is worth the sum of its future profits. This benchmark is how investors calculate the fair price of a company's shares

Grow future profits by increasing revenues or decreasing expenses

Fostering consumer habits is an effective way to increase the value of a company by driving higher customer life time value (CLTV): the amount of money made from a customer before that person switches to a competitor, stops using the product, or dies. User habits increase how long and how frequently customers use a product, resulting in higher CLTV

'You can determine the strength of a business over time by the amount of agony they go through in raising prices.' - Warren Buffet

Habits give companies greater flexibility to increasee prices

Users who continuously find value in a product are more likely to tell their friends about it. Frequent usage creates more opportunities to encourage people to invite their friends, broadcast content, and share through word of mouth. Hooked users become brand evangelists

More frequent usage drives more viral growth

Viral Cycle Time is the amount of time it takes a user to invite another user

'Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.' - Johnn Gourville

Users also increase their dependency on habit-forming products by storing value in them

Altering behavior requires not only an understanding of how to persuade people to act—for example, the first time they land on a web page—but also necessitates getting them to repeat behaviors for long periods, ideally for the rest of their lives

Behaviors are LIFE—'last in, first out.' The habits you've most recently acquired are also the ones most likely to go soonest

Old habits die hard

The more frequently the new behavior occurred, the stronger the habit became

Determine a product's habit forming potential but plotting two factors: frequency (how often the behavior occurs) and perceived utility (how useful and rewarding the behavior is in the user's mind over alternative solutions

Even a behavior that provides minimal perceived benefit can become a habit simply because it occurs frequently

The complexity of the behavior and how important the habit was to the person greatly affected how quickly the routine was formed

One aspect is common to all successful innovations—they solve problems

'Are you building a vitamin or painkiller?'

Painkillers solve an obvious need, relieving a specific pain, and often have quantifiable markets

Vitamins do not necessarily solve an obvious pain point. Instead they appeal to users' emotional rather than functional needs

We feel satisfied that we are doing something good for our bodies—even if we can't tell how much good it is actually doing

A habit is when not doing an action causes a bit of pain

Habit-forming technologies are both a painkiller and a vitamin. These services seem at first to be offering nice-to-have vitamins, but once the habit is established, they provide an ongoing pain remedy

Seeking pleasure and avoiding pain are two key motivators in all species. When we feel discomfort, we seek to escape the uncomfortable sensation. Emotions, often negative ones, trigger users to reach for solutions. Habit-forming products create associations in users' minds—and that the solution to their pain may be found in your product's use

Habits are not the same thing as additions. The latter word means persistent, compulsive dependencies on a behavior or substance. Addictions, by definition are self-destructive. It is irresponsible to make products that rely on creating and maintaining user addictions because doing so would mean intentionally harming people

A habit is a behavior that can have a positive influence on a person's life

The chain reaction that forms a habit always starts with a trigger

Habit-forming technologies start changing behavior by first cueing users with a call to action

External triggers are embedded with information, which tells the user what to do next

More choices require the user to evaluate multiple options. Too many choices or irrelevant options can cause hesitation, confusion, or worse—abandonment. Reducing the thinking required to take the next action increases the likelihood of the desired behavior occurring unconsciously

Companies can utilize four types of external triggers to move users to complete desired actions: 1. Paid triggers 2. Earned triggers 3. Relationship triggers 4. Owned triggers

Advertising, search engine marketing, and other paid channels are commonly used to get users' attention and prompt them to act

Because paying for reengagement is unsustainable for most business models, companies generally use paid triggers to acquire new users and then leverage other triggers to bring them back

Earned triggers are free in that they cannot be bought directly, but they often require investment in the form of time spent on public and media relations

One person telling others about a product or service can be a highly effective external trigger for action

Proper use of relationship triggers requires building an engaged user base that is enthusiastic about sharing the benefits of the product with others

Owned triggers consume a piece of real estate in the user's environment

Without owned triggers and users' tacit permission to enter their attentional space, it is difficult to cue users frequently enough to change their behavior

When a product becomes tightly coupled with a thought, an emotion, or a preexisting routine, it leverages an internal trigger

We use products to find solutions to problems

As product designers it is our goal to solve these problems and eliminate pain—to scratch the user's itch. Users who find a product that alleviates their pain will form strong, positive associations with the product over time

Once a technology has created an association in user's minds that the product is the solution of choice, they return on their own, no longer needing prompts from external triggers

In the case of internal triggers, te information about what to do next is encoded as a learned association in the user's memory

It can take weeks or months of frequent usage for internal triggers to latch onto cues. New habits are sparked by external triggers, but associations with internal triggers are what keeps users hooked

Products that successfully create habits soothe the user's pain by laying claim to a particular feeling. Product designers must know their user's internal triggers—that is, the pain they seek to solve

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

The company must identify the particular frustration or pain point in emotional terms, rather than product features

The internet is 'a giant machine designed to give people what they want. We often think the Internet enables you to do new things... But people just want to do the same things they've always done.' - Evan Williams

Ask yourself what pain these habits solve and what the user might be feeling right before one of these actions

What would your users want to achieve by using your solution? Where and when will they use it? What emotions influence their use and will trigger them to action?

'If you want to build a product that is relevant to folks, you need to put yourself in their shoes and you need to write a story from their side. So, we spend a lot of time writing what's called user narratives. If you do that story well, then all of the prioritization, all of the product, all of the design and all the coordination that you need to do with these products just falls out naturally because you can edit the story and everyone can relate to the story from all levels of the organization, engineers to operations to support to designers to the business side of the house.' - Jack Dorsey

A clear description of users—their desires, emotions, the context with which they use the product—is paramount to building the right solution

Asking the question 'Why?' as many times as it takes to get to ann emotion

'5 Whys Method.' By repeating 'why?' five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear

Only an accurate understanding of our user's underlying needs can inform the product requirements

If the user does not take action, the trigger is useless. To initiate action, doing must be easier than thinking

The more effort required to perform the desired action, the less likely it is to occur

There are three ingredients required to initiate any and all behaviors: 1. the user must have sufficient motivation; 2. the user must have the ability to complete the desired action; and 3. a trigger must be present to activate the behavior

Motivation defines the level of desire to take that action

Motivation is 'the energy for action'

All humans are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain; to seek hope and avoid fear; and to seek social acceptance and avoid rejection

Understand the reason people use a product or service. Lay out the steps the customer must take to get the job done. Once the series of tasks from intention to outcome is understood, simply start removing steps until you reach the simplest possible process

Any technology or product that significantly reduces the steps to complete a task will enjoy high adoption rates by the people it assists

Easier equals better

'Tale a human desire, preferably one that has been around for a really long time... Identify that desire and use modern technology to take out steps.' - Evan Williams

The pattern of innovation shows that making a given action easier to accomplish spurs each successive phase of the web, helping to turn the formerly niche behavior of content publishing into a mainstream habit

The ease or difficulty of doing a particular action affects the likelihood that a behavior will occur. To successfully simplify a product, we must remove obstacles that stand in the user's way

Ability is the capacity to do a particular behavior

The six elements of simplicity: 1. Time (how long it takes to complete an action) 2. Money (the fiscal cost of taking an action) 3. Physical effort (the amount of labor involved in taking the action) 4. Brain cycles (the level of mental effort and focus required to take an action) 5. Social deviance (how accepted the behavior is by others) 6. Non-routine (how much the action matches or disrupts existing routines)

To increase the likelihood that a behavior will occur, focus on simplicity as a function of the user's scarcest resource at that moment. Identify what the user is missing. What is making it difficult for the user to accomplish the desired action?

The easier an action, the more likely the user is to do it and to continue the cycle through the next phase of the Hook Model

For companies building technology solutions, the greatest return on investment generally comes from increasing a product's ease of use

Increasing motivation is expensive and time consuming. Web site visitors tend to ignore instructional text; they are often multitasking and have little patience for explanations about why or how they should do something

Make your product so simple that the users already know how to use it

As prices decrease, consumers purchase more

A product can decrease in perceived value if it starts off as scarce and becomes abundant

Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts we take to make quick decisions. Product designers can utilize heuristics to increase the likelihood of their desired action

Once we figure out what will happen next, we become less excited by the experience

To hold our attention, products must have an ongoing degree of novelty

Variable rewards come in three types: the tribe, the hunt, and the self

Rewards of the tribe, or social rewards, are driven by our connectedness with other people

Our brains are adapted to seek rewards that make us feel accepted, attracted, important, and included

Only by understanding what truly matters to users can a company correctly match the right variable reward to their intended behavior

We are more likely to be persuaded to give when our ability to choose is reaffirmed

Letting them do what they want to do

Companies that successfully change behaviors present users with an implicit choice between their old way of doing things and a new, more convenient way to fulfill existing needs

To change behavior, products must ensure the users feel in control. People must want to use the service, not feel they have to

An element of mystery is an important component of continued user interest

The commitments we make have a powerful effect on us and play an important role in the things we do, the products we buy, and the habits we form

The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it

Investments are about the anticipation of longer-term rewards, not immediate gratification

Investments in a product create preferences because of our tendency to overvalue our work, be consistent with past behaviors, and avoid cognitive dissonance

Investments increase the likelihood of users returning by improving the service the more it is used. They enable the accrual of stored value in the form of content, data, followers, reputation, or skill

5 fundamental questions for building effective hoooks: 1. What do users really want? What pain is your product relieving? 2. What brings users to your service? 3. What is the simplest action users take in anticipation of reward, and how can you simplify your product to make this action easier? 4. Are users fulfilled by the reward yet left wanting more? 5. What bit of work do users invest in your product? Does it load the next trigger and store value to improve the product with use?

The maker needs to ask two questions: Would I use the product myself? Will the product help users materially improve their lives?

When you create something that you would use, that you believe makes the user's life better, you are facilitating a healthy habit

Companies building habit-forming technologies have a moral obligation to inform and protect users who are formulating unhealthy attachments to their products

Even though the world is becoming a potentially more addictive place, most people have the ability to self-regulate their behaviors

Facilitators build the change they want to see in the world

If creators of a potentially addictive technology make something that they use but can't in good conscience claim improves users' lives, they're making entertainment

Creating a product that the designer does not believe improves users' lives and that he himself would not use is called exploitation

The most highly regarded entrepreneurs are driven by meaning, a vision for greater good that drives them forward

Building a habit-forming product is an iterative process and requires user-behavior analysis and continuous experimentation

'Instead of asking what problem should I solve? ask what problem do I wish someone else would solve for me?' - Paul Graham

Studying your own needs can lead to remarkable discoveries and new ideas because the designer always has a direct line to at least one user: himself

As you go about your day, ask yourself why you do or do not do certain things and how those tasks could be made easier or more rewarding

Questions and exercises to build habit-forming products:

What habits does your business model require?

What problem are users turning to your product to solve?

How do users currently solve that problem and why does it need a solution?

How frequently do you expect users to engage with your product?

What user behavior do you want to make into a habit?

Who is your product's user?

What is the user doing right before your intended habit?

Come up with 3 internal triggers that could cue your user too action

Which internal trigger does your user experience most frequently?

Think of three conventional ways to trigger your user with current technology (e-mails, notifications, text messages, etc.). Then stretch yourself to come up with at least three crazy or currently impossible ways to trigger your user.

Review your flow. What bit of work are your users doing to increase their likelihood of returning?

Brainstorm three ways to add small investments into your product to load the next trigger and store value as data, content, followers, reputation, and skill

Identify how long it takes for a loaded trigger to reengage your users. How can you reduce the delay to shorten time spent cycling through the Hook