How can prosperous businesses produce goods that consumers can’t live without? What causes certain things to become popular while others fail? What causes us to use particular things just out of habit? Does the way that technology captivates us follow a pattern?
In Hooked, Nir Eyal provides answers to these and other issues by outlining the Hook Model, a four-step procedure that is included into the goods of several prosperous businesses to gently influence consumer behaviour.
Without relying on expensive advertising or forceful messages, these solutions achieve their ultimate objective of attracting consumers back again and time again through successive “hook cycles.”
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About the Author
For years, Nir Eyal worked in the video game and advertising businesses, where he learnt, used, and occasionally rejected the methods outlined in Hooked to influence and inspire consumers. At the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design and Stanford Graduate School of Business, he has instructed classes on applied consumer psychology.
He also frequently speaks at Fortune 500 businesses and industry conferences. He has written on technology, psychology, and business for publications including Psyc, TechCrunch, The Atlantic, and Harvard Business Review.
Review
The ability to grab and hold a user’s attention has become the holy grail for Internet businesses and entrepreneurs in a world where screens and incessant notifications rule. As a product manager, reading “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” by Nir Eyal has been the high point of my month.
The book Hooked claims to unlock the mysteries of these captivating digital encounters. However, what does Eyal’s examination of the Hook Model actually teach us, and what is hidden behind the appealing title?
Because of Nir Eyal’s lucid and succinct language, a wide range of readers may understand complicated psychological topics. Readers may learn how to make habit-forming goods as well as how they function thanks to the structure this book presents.
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In addition to the thorough data that supports it, this book stands out for its fair representation of a sometimes contentious sector. This 300-page tome took me almost two weeks to finish, not just because of its length but also because of how relatable the illustrations were.
The four main elements of the Hook Model—trigger, action, variable reward, and investment—form the basis of the book’s organisation. In order to demonstrate how businesses like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest develop products that entice customers to return for more, the author thoroughly breaks down each of these components. His observations are supported by research in behavioural economics and psychology, which makes the book well-researched and useful.
This book’s ethical viewpoint is among the most important things I took away from it. Eyal discusses the ethical issues with habit-forming goods and the role that businesses and product designers play in influencing user behaviour. He offers advice on how to balance company success with user well-being and promotes the development of products that improve consumers’ lives.
Eyal claims that a four-step procedure explains how social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have ingrained themselves into our everyday routines. Every component is like a precisely fitting puzzle piece:
- Trigger: Everything begins with a trigger, which can be internal (such as a thought or emotion) or external (such as a notice). Eyal provides examples of how to utilize these triggers to elicit actions from users.
- Action: It’s critical to comprehend what motivates consumers to take action. Eyal explores the psychological foundations and gives instances of how businesses persuade people to click, like, or share.
- Variable Reward: This is where the element of surprise is added. According to Eyal, the endless scroll on your preferred social networking site is an example of how fluctuating incentives entice users to return for more.
- Investment: Investment is the last component. Customers are more likely to return when they are invited to contribute to the product. You have invested in social media sites; consider the time and energy you have spent creating your profiles.
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When describing triggers, Eyal introduced a crucial idea that enables users to respond right away: just put the action in the user’s face. For example, you may just make it a button with the appropriate button name label rather than having them read a piece of content in its whole or navigate through three panels before they can do an action.
Nel also brought up Fogg’s description of the six (6) components of simplicity. They are
- Time: The amount of time needed to do a task; money is the monetary price of doing anything. Physical effort is the quantity of work required to perform the action.
- Brain cycles: The amount of concentration and mental work needed to perform an action; the degree to which a behaviour is tolerated by others is known as social deviance.
- Non-routine: “How much the action matches or disrupts existing routines,” as Fogg puts it, in the modern world, this means that designers must concentrate on simplicity as a function of the user’s most limited resource at that time in order to maximise the possibility that a behaviour will occur; put otherwise, determine what the user is lacking; what is preventing the user from doing the intended action?
In conclusion, “Hooked” offers helpful guidance and doable actions to assist you in reaching your objectives, whether you’re a product manager attempting to increase user engagement or a startup founder hoping to create the next great app.
Summary
This book provides users with practical advice on how to establish and maintain almost self-sustaining user habits. The design and construction of things that consumers adore will be taught to readers.
The book provides examples of effective consumer “hooking” strategies used by popular products like Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter. Readers will discover that they may use some of the most fundamental human behavioural characteristics to create a habit by designing a product to be addictive.
“Reducing the thinking required to take the next action increases the likelihood of the desired behaviour occurring unconsciously.”
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A habit is defined by the author as “behaviours done with little or no conscious thought.” There are helpful tips for readers on how to develop these kinds of habits in the “habit zone.” The “habit zone” is where consumers develop a strong bond with a product without giving it much thought. The Hooked Model’s tactics will teach readers how to “hook” a consumer step-by-step.
Readers will discover why certain goods captivate consumers’ interest while others fail to gain traction. The Hook Model is all about understanding how to engage customers by developing a product that forms a habit using tried-and-true methods.
Case studies of how the four-step approach aids in producing a product that “hooks” buyers are provided to readers. The ultimate result is a product that capitalizes on people’s natural propensity to create habits rather than complex and costly marketing.