Designing to build habits
Recently I’ve been obsessed with understanding how we form habits. As a product designer, this is one of the key attributes that contribute to building compelling products that can make a(n) (positive) impact on people’s lives so this is rather a good obsession to have. In my search to understand this better, I came across 2 books that helped me develop a nice framework around this.
Both books are in-depth guides, but I learned more tactical lessons from “Hooked” as it revolved around my specific area of interest — building habit-forming tech products. In Hooked, Nir Eyal (the author) borrows a lot of Dr. Fogg’s (Tiny Habit’s author) habit-forming framework, which proves the genius of Dr. Fogg.
Interesting tidbits: Instagram was built in Dr. Fogg’s class, so with Tiny Habits, you are literally learning from the Master :), Also Nir Eyal is a student of Dr. Fogg.
Here are a few takeaways
1. Habit-forming products are hard to build — but worth the effort:
Products that change a user’s routines hold a special place in their mind. This means these products retain their users longer, have stronger daily/monthly engagement, and are more likely to grow organically through word of mouth. Such products also end up being “price resilient” as users attach more value to them and don’t hesitate to pay a little more for the privilege.
2. To build a successful habit-forming product — start with the “emotion”
Successful habit-forming products start with understanding your user’s offlin mental state — even before they open the product to use it. To be able to do this well, user journeys are great tools, but they don’t talk about the “squishy” parts of the human experience — the emotion that drives people to use your product.
Here’s an example: Users experience FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) or boredom before they pick up a social media app like Facebook or Instagram. Whether it’s mindless scrolling or active engagement, these apps help the user alleviate their current mental state, and provide a release. It’s no wonder that they have millions of highly engaged and active users.
Another example is the language learning app “DuoLingo”. Duo has mastered the art of tapping into the user emotion of people wanting to learn/grow instead of wasting time when they are bored. Thoughtfully timed notifications to prompt the user to not “miss” their streak, “stop” their progress etc, nudging users to keep returning to the product. Per Nir, it’s also important to understand that negative emotions have a stronger pull than positive ones. This could be the reason for Duo phrasing notifications this way.
[Not from the book] Users might experience “fear” with their current situation, which can make them gravitate toward physical and mental wellness products. Designing around this emotion and alleviating it can define success for products in this sector.
3. Behavior = Motivation + Action + Trigger:
Also called Fogg’s behavior model, changing a user’s behavior is a synergy of 3 components — Motivation, action, and triggers. Successful behavior change happens when the right triggers with specific actions are placed in the path of highly motivated users. However, the most important aspect here is “action”. Why? Motivation is a changing resource and triggers don’t move the needle if the motivation is lower or the action is hard/unspecific. Designing for a specific and achievable action within the user’s current ability is essential for behavior change. How small can an action be? Think VERY small.
For example: To enable people to develop the habit of Flossing, Dr.Fogg broke down the habit of flossing to its smallest element — Start with flossing one tooth. This changes the mindset around time and investment needed to build the habit, thereby making sure that people stick with it. The more people stick with something, the more likely they are to improve as they experience the notion of success, from completing the atomic action the previous day.
4. Build a variable reward system:
Variable reward systems add the notion of surprise and variety to products, which makes them interesting to users. “Feedback loops” are all around us, but predictable ones don’t create desire”. To keep users coming back, designers should focus on keeping their products interesting.
For example: Move goals/step count competitions by fitness trackers are great examples of variable reward systems. They enable users to keep/achieve their goal of moving more by adding the “variable” of step counts of friends that change at different time increments. This friendly competition, adds variety and camaraderie between friends and is a great way to build a sticky experience that can positively impact user behavior.
5. Ask for the user’s investment:
Users attach a great deal of importance to any form of “effort” they put into a product. In their minds, putting effort into your product, like adding a data log or capturing a memory, instantly makes it more valuable. Product designers can leverage this thinking. If you find a certain tribe of users deriving value from your product, make them work a little more. Ask them to add a journal, note or invite friends. This is counter-intuitive to making the product “as easy as possible”, but makes it infinitely valuable in the user’s eyes in the long term.
For example: When a user follows someone on Twitter, they have made an implicit commitment to using the product for another day. “Following” a user means the current user is interested in coming back to the platform again to see what was shared by the people they follow. At this point, well-positioned earned triggers like app-notifications and email reminders can prompt users to come back and invest more into the platform, thereby building a habit of using your product.
Behavior Engineering and the ability to design habit-forming products are superpowers bestowed upon product designers. It is important that we use these build products that have a positive impact on the user’s lives and minds. If used to exploit, habits can turn into wasteful addictions. Understanding the mechanics of how habit-forming products are built can also help non-designers protect themselves from being manipulated.
