“Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.”
Why do some products capture our attention while others flop? What makes us engage with certain things out of sheer habit? Is there an underlying pattern to how technologies hook us?
Nir Eyal answers these questions (and many more) with the Hook Model – a four-step process that, when embedded into products, subtly encourages customer behaviour. Through consecutive “hook cycles,” these products bring people back again and again without depending on costly advertising or aggressive messaging.
Hooked is based on Eyal’s years of research, consulting, and practical experience. He wrote the book he wished had been available to him as a start-up founder – not abstract theory, but a how-to guide for building better products. Hooked is written for product managers, designers, marketers, start-up founders, and anyone who seeks to understand how products influence our behaviour.
Hooked Book Summary ( How to Build Habit-Forming Products)
“Users who continually find value in a product are more likely to tell their friends about it.”
In the book “Hooked” explains the psychological processes that shape our habits and shows how companies can use our weaknesses to create successful products. You will also learn why creating a product that shapes a habit is the best way to sell and promote a product that the company can use. You’ll find out in the following insights: what a “hook” model is and how to use it; how to create user habits with your product; what steps to take to create a product that everyone will love.
Insight 1 of “Hooked“ book ” Habit ”
Habit is the key to the success of any product ,but it is not easy to create or change it. At the end of each year, we plan to start doing so much in the new year: stop drinking alcohol, eat healthier food, start going to the gym again. When the countdown begins, we are still determined to do it all in the new year. But why, when January 5 comes, are we still sitting on the sofa, eating chips and drinking beer? It’s effortless: it happens because of our habits. We are so accustomed to certain actions or ways of life that we do it unconsciously. Habit appears because our brain wants to save energy, and so in most situations, it forces us to do what we are used to.
For example, the terrible habit chewing fingernails is associated with stress. The brain has made a connection between this habit and the desire to calm down and concentrate, so some people do it completely unconsciously. The main problem with people is that they have a hard time changing habits. Studies have shown that even if we have changed our habits, our brain’s neural connections that were responsible for this habit remain intact. So we can easily go back to our old habits.
This demonstrates alcoholism: even after getting out of drinking and having undergone detoxification, every second person starts drinking again within a year. No wonder we have problems with our promised start doing something a new year or even Monday. But still, how can we most effectively implement new habits? The easiest way is to repeat new actions, often and regularly.
There are a lot of examples in everyday life. Stand in a queue or wait for something – you can go to Facebook and watch the news feed, there is a question – you can google, you have seen something interesting – you can take a picture and put it in Instagram. Another way to form a client’s habit is to create a beneficial and user-friendly product. For example, the Internet giant Amazon together with its product, shows ads of direct competitors. Thus, in addition to the money he earns for his ads, he also makes it a habit for users to start searching for any product with Amazon.
Insight 2 of “Hooked” book ” Products “
Products that are addictive generate more profit and have a strong competitive advantage. What brings together the most successful companies and products today? They form a habit. Such products gradually penetrate our daily lives, such as social networks, where we used to start every morning to see if there is something new and interesting.
There are many advantages to selling a product that shapes a habit. First, with its help, you increase the client’s lifetime value, that is, increase the income that you plan to receive from future interactions with the client. Moreover, people like to tell their friends about the products that shape their habits, that is, advertising you.
For example, one of the secrets of Facebook ‘rapid growth, as well as other social networks, was that people quickly got used to using it in everyday life, called their friends there, and marked them in photos increased the number of users. Secondly, an addictive product has a strong competitive advantage. This is because changing habits is challenging for us. Therefore, to switch to a new product, it has to be much better than what we are used to. No small advantage can help with this.
A good example is a standard keyboard with a QWERTY keyboard layout. It was created because of the technical features of old typewriters. After that, more convenient layouts were invented to increase typing speed and reduce errors. But they could not gain a foothold in the market because of the strong psychological costs of users, who had to spend more than two months to type freely using all their fingers. People were not ready to learn, so they stayed on QWERTY.
Thirdly, an addictive product has greater flexibility in pricing. This is because users who are used to some product, become less sensitive to the price. For example, video games often use this technique: allowing playing for free for a while; they form a habit for users. When the time comes to switch to the paid version, it is easier to convert them into users who are ready to pay. Addictive products first look simply desirable to users, something like vitamins, but then they become essential and similar to painkillers.
“all humans are motivated to seek pleasure and avoid pain, to seek hope and avoid fear, and finally, to seek social acceptance and avoid rejection.”
Insight 3 of “Hooked” book ” “Hook” model ”
The “hook” model is a four-step cycle that reinforces itself by creating a strong habit for users. Products that are addictive have many advantages. But how do you create such products? To do this, companies must follow the so-called “hook” model. The “hook” model is a cycle of four steps that, when repeated, form a user’s use of a particular product.
So, four stages of the “hook” model: “Triggers “are divided into external and internal. At first, there is an external event that prompts us to try the product for the first time. For example, your friend liked a photo on Instagram and decided to share it with you, but you have not used this social network before.
“Action.” When you do it, you expect some reward that will follow. So, your friend sent you a link to the photos you could follow it. The action is to follow that link. But for you to follow it, two conditions must be met: You have to be interested in this photo, and it must be easy for you to do this action.
“Variable Reward.” It is one of the strongest mechanisms used to promote different products. Going back to our example. If you follow a link to a photo on Instagram and find a lot of your friends, it can be an unexpected reward for you.
“Investment” – is what we invest in the product. It is not necessarily money, and it may be information, time, and effort. For example, when you look at photos of your friends on Instagram, you are interested in what else they will post and so you subscribe to them. Then you decided to upload some photos of yours as well.
The last step, the investment, leads to another cycle, thus triggering an internal trigger. Each time the trigger becomes more attractive, actions are easier, and rewards are more intriguing. Over time, the internal trigger becomes stronger, and in the end, the user no longer thinks about whether he needs your product, but uses it. If you are bored – go to Instagram, see what’s interesting there, flip through the news feed, put likes on some photos. A “hook” model is a cycle that reinforces itself, thus shaping our behaviour over the long term. Next, we will take a closer look at each step
Insight 4 of “Hooked” book “External Trigger”
“To change behaviour, products must ensure the user feels in control. People must want to use the service, not feel they have to.”
“External Trigger” starts creating a habit; it’s like a spark that starts an engine. People don’t get into habits spontaneously. They don’t wake up one morning with the wonderful idea of installing a new app with funny filters for photos and using it. Rather, it should be a gradual process, but to start it, you need the first step in the form of an external trigger.
In the case of an app, it could have been friend who mentioned it or an article that reviewed it. An external trigger is necessary because the product is not initially a habit for potential users. For example, even if you visit Facebook several times a day today, you once needed an external trigger to start using it. Most likely, the invitation was from a friend who was already using the Facebook.
External triggers are calls to action, and they come in different types. They may be paid for (but companies that create demand-driven products usually do not use them), they may be free, for example, as a product overview in the media. These can be relationship triggers when a product is virulently distributed or embedded triggers, such as when a user has permitted to send an email.
“The ultimate goal of all external triggers is to draw users into the “hook” model and make them go through all its stages several times so that after many successful cycles they no longer need to be stimulated from outside.” Nir Eyal . For example, imagine that you want to join a new social network, but it is very difficult to understand how to register and follow all the steps, or it takes too long to complete the necessary information.
Now compare this to a situation where the site has a bright and large button – “registration,” after clicking on which you can use your data from another social network to perform the necessary procedure. Feel the difference? For the external trigger to be effective, information must be built into it that offers the user the easiest and clearest possible choice of actions. When there are too many options, it is likely that the user will refuse any further steps.
Insight 5 of “Hooked” book “Inner Trigger ”
“Too many choices or irrelevant options can cause hesitation, confusion, or worse—abandonment.”
“Inner Trigger.” By using it, you ensure the success of your product in the long term. As we have already understood, the frequency of use of the product is a key factor in creating a habit. If we use the product frequently, we are likely to create a long-term habit. Companies cannot rely only on external triggers to promote a product.
Moreover, if they are paid, their constant use leads to a serious amount of money, and you can not always accurately and objectively calculate the conversion. In other words, to correlate the money spent on advertising with the number of new users who have appeared to you. All this means that if the company wants to interact effectively with the client, it needs to use its internal trigger, i.e., its intimate association, which motivates it to act. But what do people want? It’s simple: they don’t know what they’re guided by in their decisions.
Usually, products should take away the user’s pain or be a source of pleasure. “When research focuses on what people are doing (watching kitty cat videos) rather than what they would like to do (creating professional quality home videos), it empowers you.” Nir Eyal . By creating a mental link between the product and the desired solution to the user’s problem, we create an internal trigger to use it. But it often happens that the most powerful internal triggers are negative emotions.
One such emotion is the fear of missing something interesting about our friends, idols, just famous people, or the city where we live. For example, Instagram allows us to ease our fear of missing an impressive moment, thus creating an inner trigger. Once the internal trigger is in place, we begin to feel the impulse to use the product more often. But triggers are just the beginning: other factors determine whether or not we will use this product in the future.
Insight 6 of “Hooked” book ” “Action “
For a potential user to perform it, the trigger must be clear, its performance is simple, and the motivation is correctly selected. After the external or internal trigger has directed the user, the next step is action. Of course, one trigger is not enough for a person to act.
According to the model of Professor B.J. Fogg from Stanford University, to start any action, a person needs three components: a trigger, which we have already discussed; the motivation that will be enough for the action; and the ability to do it. So without the last two components, the trigger is useless in itself. In terms of motivation, users are interested in acting if they want to get the desired result.
According to Fogg, our motivation depends on our desire to experience pleasure, hope, and a sense of acceptance from others. At the same time, we strive to avoid pain, fear, and feelings of rejection from society. Emotions are also a strong motivator for action, which is why they are often used in advertisements.
For example, advertising with semi-naked girls is used for almost everything: from Victoria’s Secret lingerie to the Burger King. Thus, advertisers expect to attract the attention of their audience and motivate them to act. Of course, negative emotions can also be used in advertising. For example, advertisements that show the importance of using motorcycle helmets use the words “I’m not wearing a helmet: I look stupid in it” in front of a young man after brain surgery.
On the other hand, it is much cheaper and easier to make your product easier and more understandable to use than trying to motivate people in different ways. A good way to do this is to simplify the steps you have to take to use the product. It is important to remember that for a person to do the action we are offering them, it must be “easier to do than to think.” So, we see: for the user to perform the action we expect him to do, we have to provide him with a clear and simple trigger to easily perform this step, not forgetting to offer the right motivator.
Insight 7 of “Hooked” book ” Variable reward ”
“Variable reward” is necessary to retain users in the long term. Although motivation is important for the user to try the product, they will not use it unless it produces the desired results. In other words, for your clients to frequently use your product, it must do what it promises. That is, it should reward users for their actions and lead to the expected result. But all this is not enough to keep the user in the long term; for this purpose, “reward variables” are necessary.
Studies have shown that the anticipation of reward is more interesting than the reward itself. Moreover, if we do not know what the reward will be, that is, the reward will be unpredictable or variable, we are even more anxious to get it. “Variable rewards” is the third stage of the “hook” model. To increase your product’s user addiction, you should use a combination of different types of “reward variables.” These are the strongest of them: “tribal reward”- This refers to our past; a “tribe” may include friends in V Kontakte , followers on Instagram, and people united by common interests. “Reward the prey.” Previously we hunted animals to feed ourselves and our tribe, today we hunt differently: for finance, information, status symbols, or just something scarce and interesting.
“Inner reward.” We desire to defeat external circumstances for our satisfaction. When we complete the tasks we have begun, we feel a sense of victory and satisfaction. But all rewards should always be in line with the original motivation for using the product while reinforcing it. This explains the massive popularity of social networks.
“In theory, a variable reward system should meet the needs of users and encourage them to return to the product again and again.” Nir Eyal .For example, YouTube offers all kinds of rewards. By creating a popular channel, the user receives “tribe reward” in the form of views, subscribers and likes. Gaining popularity, this user gets a “tribal reward” in the form of monetization or receiving, depending on the number of subscribers, the cherished gold, silver or diamond YouTube button for all video bloggers. Moreover, this user gets an “internal reward,” creating more interesting content each time and reaching new heights.
Insight 8 of “Hooked” book ” Investment ”
Investments occur when a user invests something in a product. This increases addiction by allowing another trigger to be triggered. The trigger transmits information to the user about what he needs to do next. The user, in turn, performs minor action sand receives an immediate reward, which will be variable and subsequently addictive.
But what is the next step that takes the user back to the trigger and then back to the next cycle? Investments. When users invest something in a product, be it time, effort, money or even information about themselves, they are more likely to use the product again. Why does it work? First of all, we think things are more valuable if we put something into them.
Dan Arieli, Professor of Psychology and Behavioural Economics, conducted research in 2011 and made it clear that if we do something with our own hands, we can appreciate it five times more than others. This is called the effect of IKEA, the world’s largest company in the sale and production of furniture, after the purchase of which the customer will assemble it himself. In this way, a cabinet assembled with your own hands becomes much more valuable than a cabinet bought in assembled condition.
We also have a tendency to change our attitude towards products that we think we need. For example, try to remember how you felt when you first tasted spicy food. How did you like it? Probably not, because our innate reaction to it is rejection. But since we saw other people enjoying spicy food, we also tried to enjoy it all the time. So our behaviour influenced our preference, and later we got used to it, and we even started to like spicy food. Users who have invested in your product can change their attitude towards it, starting to become even more dependent on it. “The more time and effort people invest in a product, the more they value it.
There is a lot of evidence that the efforts made can even arouse love.” Nir Eyal. . If a trigger – action – variable reward- investment is repeated quite often, users will have a strong habit to the product. In short, they will be “hooked.”
Insight 9 of “Hooked” book
The moral responsibility for using products that are addictive lies with the creators. The claim that the user is “hooked” on the product sounds like manipulation or a “brainwashing guide.” There is something to it, because the “hook “model changes people’s behaviour. So it is very important that it is used responsibly. But manipulation isn’t always a bad thing.
Some such products can even improve and extend our life expectancy. For example, the American company Weight Watchers is “one of the most popular products of mass manipulation of people in history,” and we do not consider their actions wrong, knowing that their product improves the lives of thousands of people. “Let’s honestly admit that we’re all in a business based on conviction. Creating high-tech products is inextricably linked to the need to convince people to do what we want.” Nir Eyal .
So, how can a company or investor understand the ethical side of the question of product manipulation? There are just two questions that need to be answered: “Will the product significantly improve the lives of consumers?” “Would I use this product myself?” Answering these two questions, there are only four types of product creator: “Drug dealer” – if the answers to both questions were “no.” Then this product is likely to be morally wrong. An extreme example is a drug dealer, a man who wants to get as many people on his product as possible. But this product clearly will not improve the lives of its customers, and the dealer will not use it either.
“The Hawker.” The creator of such a product wants to improve people’s lives, but would not use it himself. There’s nothing immoral about it. Only it means that the developer knows his consumers very poorly, so the chances of success of the product are meagre. “Showman.” Such a company can sell a product that it would use itself, but it does not improve people’s lives. This can be referred to as entertainment, which already justifies the existence of this product.
“Assistant.” Such creators believe that their product makes consumers’ lives better and are willing to use it themselves. If they face problems that they are trying to solve, they can be safely attributed to this type. “You must be the change that you want to seeing the world.” Mahatma Gandhi.
In the end, each seller is responsible for his product and how it affects customers. The creators of a product, knowing the “hook “model and how it affects people, should be aware of their moral responsibility. Especially if they understand that this knowledge can be used to help people solve their problems.
Insight 10 of “Hooked” book
Needs to know your product and what the customer wants, and then make a decision about using the “hook” model. Every creator wants to make a successful product that people will use frequently.
The “hook” model can help to achieve this, but then you need to know your customers and how this product can improve their lives. But the first thing you need to understands whether your product should form a habit. For example, when creating a product, you should start by analysing your potential customers and what your product offers. This is because, in the end, the product should provide a solution to a problem that occurs frequently enough for customers to form a habit.
It is important to understand what potential clients hope to get from your product and what you can offer them. After that, you can configure all parameters of the “hook” model, for example, triggers and award variables. In case you want to improve an existing product, you can first identify its current users and find out how they have formed a habit of using this product. For example, it may help identify some similarities between them, and then help you form the same habit with new users. After all, there are as many ways to apply the “hook” model as there are different products in the world.
As long as you can link your customers’ needs with the benefits your product offers and guide users through the “hook” stages, your product is bound to remain successful! Conclusion. Main idea. By creating products that are addictive, companies ensure their long-term success. The “hook” model, using four stages, helps form strong habituation in potential customers, a trigger like a spark launches this cycle and forces us to act, which in turn leads to a reward that we want to multiply. Then we invest our energy or resources in this product, which starts this cycle again.
“The Hook Model is designed to connect the user’s problem with the designer’s solution frequently enough to form a habit. It is a framework for building products that solve user needs through long-term engagement.”