Designing For Habits

Designing for habits
3.October.12
NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal
Welcome to the experiment
What kind of advice should you listen to?

Build something people want.

Some prerequisites
1. A vision
2. A business model
Source: Alex Osterwalder, Business Model Generation
3. A process
Source: Eric Ries, The Lean Startup
4. A moral compass
Me
How generate better hypotheses?

Patterns
NirAndFar.com
OMG businesses
Vitamins or painkillers?
Selling painkillers
- Obvious need - stop pain - Quantiable market - Monetizable
Selling vitamins
- Emotional need, not efcacy - Makes me feel good knowing... - Unknown market
Vitamins or painkillers?
Habit when not doing causes pain.

Habit-forming technology
Pleasure seeking Pain alleviation
Vitamin
Painkiller
Creating pain? (more of an itch)

Where this ts
If your business model requires regular,
unprompted interaction. hypotheses to test.
A design pattern to help you form better Increase odds of success.

Todays deliverable
3 testable hypotheses designed to increase
user engagement.
Anything else?
Why habits?
Helping people do what they want to do.
pref er ence
/pref()rns/ Noun, Def: A greater liking for one alternative over another or others.
be hav ior
/bihvyr/ Noun, Def: The way in which an animal or person acts in response to a particular situation or stimulus.
rou tine
/rootn/ Noun, Def: A sequence of actions regularly followed; a xed program.
hab it
/habit/ Noun, Def: An behavior that has become nearly or completely involuntary, without cognition.
ad dic tion
/dikSHn/ Noun, Def: A persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance.
Are customer habits good for business?

Higher life-time value Greater price inelasticity, can charge more Word-of-mouth brings down cost of
acquisition = Higher ROI
Why is this graph smiling?
Source: Inc. magazine, Dec. 2011
StackOverow
Largest technical
QA site
Alexa rank 93 5,000 questions are

answered per day
FT Staff: 66
Holding on to customers by forming habits
Source: Amy Jo Kim, Community Building on the Web
To build habits need...
Au to ma ta city
Noun, Def: The ability to do things without occupying the mind with low-level details, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern.
What is automaticity good for?

Ability to learn Helps us decide Saves energy Allows multitasking
Decisions are work

Prisoners appearing for parole hearings early in the morning granted parole 70% of the time. However, those appearing late in the day, when judges were tired, paroled less than 10% of the time. So, making more decisions through habit instead of logic, can leave more resources for important decisions
Source: Levav and Danziger, 2011
How to build automaticity?

Frequency and utility
How do we get users to come back?

Building desire through engagement

Low engagement High engagement
The Desire Engine
Remember: A TARI
A - A Desire Engine has 4 parts: T - Trigger A - Action R - Reward I - Investment
In summary
Habits can be good for business. Habits require automaticity - action
without cognition. reserve.
Leaves us with more decision making Creating automaticity is a function of utility

and frequency.
Frequency from creating desire.
Your turn
Does your business model require habits? How often do you expect users to engage? Whats your hook? What makes your
product a habit?
Triggers
Habits arent created, they are built upon
Triggers
External Alarms Calls-to-action Emails Stores Authority What to do next is in the trigger Internal Emotions Routines Situations Places People What to do next is in the users head NIR EYAL
NirAndFar.com @nireyal
External triggers
Owned - Emails, SMS, notications.. Paid - SEM, ads.. Earned - PR, free media.. Relationships - Word of mouth, afnity
groups..
Example: Pharma
External Internal
What to do next is in the trigger (Designer controls)
What to do next is in the users head NIR EYAL
Negative emotions are powerful internal triggers

Dissatised Indecisive Lost Tense Fatigued Inferior Fear of loss Bored Lonesome Confused Powerless Discouraged
Internally triggered technologies

When I feel... Lonely Hungry Unsure Anxious Lost Mentally fatigued ... I use Facebook Yelp Google Email GPS ESPN, Glam
Emotional triggers Shiv x-framework

Content Excited
Bored
Stressed
People with depression check email more.
Source: Kotikalapudi et al 2012, Associating Depressive Symptoms in College Students with Internet Usage Using Real Internet Data
Habits form from frequent problem/solution t.

To nd the problem, know the narrative

Need to nd the existing behavior to
attach to. before.
Find the behavior that occurs just Every time you (verb), use (product).
Jack Dorsey on narratives
NIR EYAL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acMXhhdWylQ NirAndFar.com @nireyal
The Instagram moment
Instagram triggers
External - FB and Twitter - App notications Internal - Fear of loosing the moment . . . - Bored, lonesome, curious...
Your turn ...

What does your user really want? Ask why until you get to because I
want to feel...
Note: You need to test this in the eld. Use
your best guess for now, but need to validate.

Build a narrative
Now that we know why Who is the user? Where are they? What are they doing right before they
use your product?
What is the internal trigger? Every time you (verb), use ..
Consistent messaging
Does your external trigger communicate
what its for?
Does it connect with the internal trigger?

Messaging
Whats your: Whats it for?

Actions
Typical actions online

Log-In (Facebook, Wordpress) Search (Google, Kayak,Yelp) Open (Twitter, SMS, email) Scroll (Pinterest, Instagram) Play (Farmville, other games) Others?
when doing < thinking = action

Fogg Behavior Model B = m.a.t.

motivation triggers
Source: Dr. BJ Fogg, Stanford University
ability
Fogg Behavior Model B = m.a.t.

motivation trigger (SUCCESS!) trigger (FAIL!) ability
mo ti va tion
/mt vSHn/ Noun, Def: The psychological feature that arouses an organism to action toward a desired goal.
Motivators of Behavior
Sensation Anticipation Social Cohesion Seek: Pleasure Hope Acceptance Avoid: Pain Fear Rejection
motivation
a bil i ty
/bilit/ Noun, Def: The capacity to do something
How increase capacity to do something?
ability
Factors of ability
Time Money Physical effort Brain cycles Social deviance Non-routine
ability
Simplicity
Simplicity is a function of your scarcest resource at that moment. - BJ Fogg
Factors of ability
Time Money Physical effort Brain cycles Social deviance Non-routine
Differ by person and context
What move rst?
Move ability before motivation

motivation
triggers
ability
Focus on ability and triggers before motivation
Focus on ability and triggers before motivation
Which has fewer calories?
Motivated people know healthier option
Source: (Chernov et al. 2011; Chandon & Wansink 2007)
America the obese
2010

Source: Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, Centers for Disease Control
Twitter homepage
2009
Twitter homepage
2010
Twitter homepage
2012
The evolution of Twitter

2009 2010
2012
Behaviors to actions with cross-functional teams

motivation = marketing triggers = interface design
ability = product
Your turn
What action follows your trigger? Is it simple and well dened? How many steps does your action take? If multi-step, does each have a trigger for
what to do next?
Increase ability
Rate your estimate of your users ability to
do the key action
1 is easy, 10 is very hard How can you increase ability by decreasing

the factors of ability?
Time, Money, Physical effort, Brain cycles,

Social deviance or Non-routine
Rate your estimate of your users motivation

to do the key action
Increase motivation
1 is easy, 10 is very hard Now plot ability and motivation How can you increase motivation by
Seek: Pleasure Hope Acceptance Avoid: Pain Fear Rejection
decreasing the factors of motivation?
Bi as
/bs/ Noun, Def: 1. A tendency or inclination; a prejudice 2. A lever to increase motivation or ability
A well-studied bias
Classical biases
Rational Can articulate, Id buy it if it were cheaper. Predictable (for the most part)
Cognitive Biases
Rational or irrational Unable to articulate Predictable
Scarcity
People value cookies
more in a nearly empty jar than in a full jar.
Source: Worchel, Lee, and Adewole (1975)
Value attribution
Wine actually
tastes better if you believe its more expensive
Source: Plassmann, ODoherty. Shiv, and Rangel, 2008
Remember this?
The halo effect
Anchoring
We tend to rely too heavily on just one trait
of a decision.
We overvalue things on sale
Jockey only!
3 for $29.50 5 for $34 NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com so, 6 for $44.25 Unit cost = $6.80 @nireyal Unit cost = $7.38
Completion
Motivation
effect increases the closer get to a goal
8 car wash, get one

free
Endowed progress
8 blank squares vs.

10 squares with 2 free punches completion rate
82% higher
Source: Nunes and Drze, The Endowed Progress Effect: How Articial Advancement Increases Effort, 2006
Sequencing
Tendency to
complete complex behavior if parsed into smaller steps
Many more...
Social proof, framing, reciprocity, relevance,
status quo, loss aversion, familiarity bias, regret aversion, peak-end effect, money proxy, authority bias ...
Your turn
Pick one of the Mental Notes cards. How could you make use of a cognitive
biases to increase your action?
Go for lots of crazy ideas

Variable rewards
The brain and rewards
Watch
Source: Olds and Milner, 1945
Reward produces behavior

What triggers brains reward system? Probes or drugs What stimulates the brain naturally?
Dopamine triggers
Were Olds and Milner stimulating pleasure? (not exactly)
I like pleasure spiked with pain, its my aeroplane

- The Red Hot Chili Peppers
Anns story
Sufferers from
Parkinsons
Treatment includes
gambler
dopamine boosters
Becomes a compulsive Why?

The promise of reward

Dopamine system activated by anticipation of reward And dampened when reward achieved
Source: Knutson et al 2001
To supercharge the stress of desire ... add variability.
We crave predictability
Variable rewards
drive us nuts
Compulsion to make
sense of cause and effect drives the search
Dopamine system
Curious by nature
I cant get no satisfaction

- The Rolling Stones
The search for rewards

the Tribe the Hunt the Self
Search for Social Rewards

the Tribe
- Acceptance - Sex - Power - Empathetic joy
Rewards of the tribe
experience taking
Search for Resources

the Hunt
- Food - Money - Information
Rewards of the hunt: search for resources
Rewards of the hunt: search for information
Dare you not to scroll

Rewards of the hunt: search for resources
Search for Sensation

the Self
- Mastery - Consistency - Competency - Purpose
Rewards of the self: Search for competency and mastery
Rewards of the self: Search for control
Fish bowl technique

Addiction Recovery Study (Petry 2006) Patients earned opportunity to draw a ticket out of a bowl every time they passed a drug test. Half of the tickets said Keep up the good work. The rest won the patient a nominal prize worth $1 to $20 but one ticket was worth $100 prize. 83% of sh bowl patients stayed in treatment for full 12 weeks (vs 20% of standard-care patients). 80% of sh bowl patients passed all their drug tests (vs. 40% of standard-care patients). Fish bowl group less likely to relapse. Technique worked better than paying patients for passing
NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com drug tests. @nireyal
Rewards Decay
As rewards become predictable, they
become less novel
Finite Variability
- Single-player games - Consumption of media - Finishing a race
Innite Variability
- Multi-player games - Creation of content - Communities - Running for pleasure or competition
Who gets hooked?

Pathological gamblers and non-pathological placed in MRI. See images of win, lose, and near-miss. Pathological gamblers experienced more excitement from seeing win. Gamblers brain saw near-miss as near-win. Non-pathological experienced near-miss as near-loss. Unknown if gamblers brain is different at birth or if caused by repeated exposure.
Source: Habib, 2010
Variable reward levers

Type (Tribe, Hunt, Self) Frequency Amplitude
Keep em guessing
Your turn

How could you use variable rewards? How can you add an element of mystery, the unknown, or surprise? Consider the search for rewards of the:
Tribe (social) Hunt (resources) Self (mastery, control)

Brainstorm
Gut check
Is the reward authentic and meaningful? Does it satisfy the internal trigger? Cull those that dont meat the conditions
above?
Are there opportunities to increase the

frequency and amplitude of rewards?
Investments
Investment
Where user does a bit
of work.
Pays with something
of value: time, money, social capital, effort, emotional commitment, personal data ...
Investment
Done in anticipation of future rewards Makes next action more likely by: Loading the trigger for next cycle Changes preferences
Pinterest (consumer)
T
Facebook, Twitter, WOM
A
Scroll
Boredom, curiosity, fatigue
I
Join
VR
Objects of desire (Hunt)
Pinterest (curator)
T
Email notication
A
Log-in
Lonesome ...
I
Pin, Re-Pin, Like, Comment
VR
Communication (Tribe)
Investment in Any.do
Investment into the
product with time, data, and social capital
Loads the next
external trigger and teaches the internal trigger

Labor is love
The IKEA effect

Source: Dan Ariely, Upside of Irrationality
People value their labor
Value own work almost as much as an experts. Even if others dont.

Source: Ariely, Mochon and Norton, 2012
Labor increases motivation

People who pick Assign greater
odds.
Source: Langer, 1975
lottery numbers more likely to play.
We value products that store our labor
Value labor done for us
Source: Buell and Norton, 2011
Others labor increases value too

Search took same
time.
People seeing the

work perceived more value.
Source: Buell and Norton, 2011
As we invest, we endow and tend to overvalue.

The endowment effect

When chimps given juice bar and peanut butter, 50/50 preference split. When given PB rst, 80% chose to keep rather than exchange. The endowed item was preferred Only worked for food
Source: Brosnan et al 2007
Humans endow things

Endowed mugs vs pens worth twice as much (Kahneman, Knetsch & Thaler,1990) Endowed nal four tickets worth 14 times more (Carmon and Ariely, 2000) Employees worked harder to maintain a provisional bonus than a potential yet-to-beawarded prize (Hossain and List, 2010) Universal behavior across different populations and with different goods (Hoffman and Spitzer,1993) NIR EYAL including children (Harbaugh et al, 2001)
Why do we endow?
Improved bargaining position in bilateral
trades. If I act like I love it, maybe you will too. (Huck, Kirchsteiger & Oechssler 2005) the joy of gaining. (Kahneman and Tversky, 1984) dissonance leads to rationalization.
Loss aversion. Loosing feels twice as bad as Need for consistency causes cognitive
Rationalization and commitment
Jesse Schell, Professor of game design, Carnegie Mellon University
The preference cycle

Investment: Should I spend on this? Conrmation: Since I spent on it before, and I am not an idiot, it must be good. Rationalization: Only an idiot would have spent on something not good.
Little investments, big results

Group 1: 17% accepted Group 2: 76% accepted
Source: Freedman & Fraser, 1966
Adaptive preference formation

Changing preferences to be
more compatible with the situation.
We acquire preferences to serve

our need to be consistent. dissonance.
Relieve pain of cognitive

Source: Jon Esler, 1983
Acquiring taste

Think of the rst time you tried spicy food or alcohol. Acquiring taste follows similar patterns of rationalization to avoid cognitive dissonance. Change ourselves as we change our preferences. Im a ____ drinker.
Investment changes identity

Becoming a consumer - I am a Fox news
watcher.
Becoming a creator - I am Twitter, FB,

StackOverow poster. drinker. I am a Mac.
Becoming a connoisseur - I am pinot noir

Motivating through identity

Registered voters completed survey the day before or the morning of the election. How important is it to you to be a voter in the upcoming election? (Noun) How important is it to you to vote in the upcoming election? (Verb) Tracked who actually voted. How we see ourselves (the nouns) shape what we do.
the largest experimental effects ever observed on objectively NIR EYAL measured voter turnout.
Source: Bryan, Walton, Rogers, and Dweck, 2011
In summary:
We overvalue the results of our labor
(endowment effect)
But need to rationalize this irrational value

(cognitive dissonance)
One way to do this is to change our taste

(adaptive preference formation) ourselves (identity shaping)
And behave in line with how we see

What this means

Build products that store value through small investments Investments dont feel like work because they require the right amount of challenge In exchange for work, the product does the job better next time Leverage investments to load the next trigger (and drive growth) Never trick the user!
Your turn
How can you use small investments to
increase the likelihood of usage by:
Loading the next trigger Storing value Increase preference

Desire engines create engagement

Low engagement - External triggers - Low preference High engagement - Internal triggers - High preference
Desire engine canvas

Trigger
2. External trigger - What gets the user to the product? 1. Internal trigger - What does the user really want?
Action
3. What does the user have to do to receive the reward? How can it be made simpler?
Investment
5. What makes the user want to come back? Has the user put in a bit of work to: - Load the next trigger - Increase the value of the product for the user.
Variable Reward
4. Whats the reward? Does it give the user what she wants? Does it maintain an element of surprise?
Email
T
Icon on phone Procrastinate, anxiety, thoughts of others.... Open unread messages
I
Write back Tribe, hunt and self
Spectator sports
T
Everywhere Monday, boredom, anxiety ... Watch
I
Buy stuff Identify self as fan Attend events
VR
Outcome (Self) Fandom - belonging (Tribe) Capturing the win (Hunt)
Twitter (consumer)
T
Facebook, friend, email ...
A
Scroll
Boredom, curiosity
I
Follow Information (Hunt)
Twitter (creator)
T
Mention, message
A
Open app
Boredom, curiosity, lonesome
I
Tweet or RT (build following)
R
Social feedback (Tribe)
Facebook
T A
With more cycles

Increase motivation and difculty of action
Greater loyalty, increased NIR EYAL price inelasticity, greater NirAndFar.com satisfaction @nireyal
Your turn
Write out your user ow along top of
page.
Use broad steps - open email, land on

home page, scroll, click on message...
Identify all the potential places for a desire

engines in your product. Find at least 2.
Building engines
Fold paper into quarters. Map out your two Desire Engines. How might users experience the new ow?
Think different
Now start over, build your competitors
Desire Engine.
What would it look like if started fresh?

Picking hypotheses
Star 3 (or more) ideas to explore further. Draw out a simple UI for each. If requires
steps, use frames.
Now go test it
Thank you! Please take this survey:
www.OpinionToUs.com

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Designing for habits

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Welcome to the experiment

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

What kind of advice should you listen to?

Build something people want.

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Source: Alex Osterwalder, Business Model Generation

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Source: Eric Ries, The Lean Startup

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

How generate better hypotheses?

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

- Obvious need - stop pain - Quantiable market - Monetizable

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Habit when not doing causes pain.

Creating pain? (more of an itch)

A design pattern to help you form better Increase odds of success.

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Helping people do what they want to do.

Are customer habits good for business?

Why is this graph smiling?

Source: Inc. magazine, Dec. 2011

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Alexa rank 93 5,000 questions are

Holding on to customers by forming habits

Source: Amy Jo Kim, Community Building on the Web

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

To build habits need...

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

What is automaticity good for?

Decisions are work

Source: Levav and Danziger, 2011

How to build automaticity?

Frequency and utility

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

How do we get users to come back?

Building desire through engagement

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

The Desire Engine

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Leaves us with more decision making Creating automaticity is a function of utility

Frequency from creating desire.

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

Habits arent created, they are built upon

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

What to do next is in the trigger (Designer controls)

What to do next is in the users head NIR EYAL

Negative emotions are powerful internal triggers

Internally triggered technologies

Emotional triggers Shiv x-framework

NIR EYAL NirAndFar.com @nireyal

People with depression check email more.