Hooked

Variable rewards are one of the most powerful tools companies implement to hook users;

Viral Cycle Time is the amount of time it takes a user to invite another user, and it can have a massive impact.

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

79 percent of smartphone owners check their device within 15 minutes of waking up every morning.

The technologies we use have turned into compulsions, if not full-fledged addictions.

Companies must learn not only what compels users to click, but also what makes them tick.

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

Variable rewards are one of the most powerful tools companies implement to hook users.

Habit-forming products change user behavior and create unprompted user engagement.

Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.

For new entrants to stand a chance, they can’t just be better, they must be nine times better.

The enemy of forming new habits is past behaviors, and research suggests that old habits die hard.

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

The ultimate goal of all external triggers is to propel users into and through the Hook Model so that, after repeated use, the trigger becomes internalized.

When users form habits, they are cued by a different kind of trigger: internal triggers.

Emotions, particularly negative ones, are powerful internal triggers and greatly influence our daily routines.

By repeating ‘why?’ five times, the nature of the problem as well as its solution becomes clear.

Experiences with finite variability become less engaging because they eventually become predictable.

Variable reward systems must satisfy users’ needs, while leaving them wanting to re-engage.

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

Habit-forming technologies leverage the user's past behavior to initiate an external trigger in the future.

The Hook Model is fundamentally about changing people’s behaviors; but the power to build persuasive products should be used with caution.

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