Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

"Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products" is a deep dive into the psychology and science behind the products and services we can't seem to live without. Nir Eyal, with illustrative examples from Jamie Oliver, presents a compelling framework for understanding how habits are formed and how product designers can build solutions that cater to these ingrained patterns. Central to the book is the "Hook Model" – a cycle that involves a trigger, an action, a variable reward, and an investment. Eyal meticulously breaks down each component, explaining how successful products seamlessly integrate into this model to drive user engagement and create sticky user experiences. What sets this book apart is its blend of rigorous academic research with actionable insights for entrepreneurs and product managers. It challenges readers to think critically about the ethical considerations of creating habit-forming products while also offering tools and techniques to ensure that these products genuinely benefit users. For anyone in the product design and development realm, "Hooked" is an indispensable guide. It offers a fresh perspective on user engagement, helping professionals craft products that not only captivate but also provide lasting value.

First off, the content is absolutely worth 5 stars. I really hate to deduct a star but I think it warrants it and discuss why only 4 stars below. Nir Eyal's knowledge and experience is worth far more than the price tag here, and even though he has posted much of the same content on his blog this is in a more cohesive, easy to follow format. I can honestly say that following the advice in this book will definitely help improve the products I build. As I was reading it I felt compelled to thrust my head into the top of my desk several times over. As he explained certain ideas I realized I had completely neglected them and they seemed so obvious. This is the hallmark sign of good advice; it seems so obvious you feel stupid for not already knowing it. The book provides specific steps to implement the ideas and exercises, as well as a key bullet point list of important items to remember. This makes the end of each chapter incredibly valuable. The negative, why it fell short of 5 stars for me: There is no table of contents! It's really hard to utilize a book like this in the way it is intended without this. I like to quickly jump to different chapters, and without having a table of contents available it's impossible. I just get an empty list in "Go to...". There are more copy errors as well than what I would expect from a finished book, but they're relatively minor (or just a few moments of awkward phrasing). If the book is updated with a proper table of contents (and x-ray would be awesome) I'll be eager to change this to a 5 star review.

When I downloaded the book, the I recalled this quote from Nir Eyal blog, Nir and Far:: "A funny thing happens when you lie to people: they tend to believe. Why shouldn't they? They lie to themselves all the time. Our minds are wired to respond in predictable ways-among them is perceiving the world the way we want to see it, not necessarily the way it is." Does this book lie? Well Nir gives us facts. He describes the way we reach user hearts and brains, in the same way perhaps Bob Dylan music hooks you on.. What is a Habit? ("automatic behavors triggered by situational cues..things we do with little or no conscious thought"). A habit-forming company, says Nir, links its services to the users' daily routines and emotions. Nir Eyal teamed with Dr. Baba Shiv to design and teach a course at Stanford Business School, on the science of influencing human behavior. This is how the Hook model was created. It is well described right at the beginning, and each step is analyzed thoroughly in subsequent chapters. Nir dedicated also an entire chapter (#6) to discuss the morality of manipulation. The irresponsible use of habits create bad habits that may degenerate. This is not the reason the Hooked model in product management was created. What is CLTV? It stands for customer lifetime value. This is the ammount of money made from "a customer, before she switches to a competitor, or dies". User habits then,, increase the CLTV. Nir quotes a paper by John Gourville from Harvard Business School "Many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old, while companies irrationaly overvsluer the new" Kindle has this feature that one can see how many people highlighted a paragraph. This quote had 26 highliters in 72 hours. It says why, for new entrants, they can't just do better, they must be nine times better.. Why is this? Because old habits die hard. Even if "the benefits of using a new product are clear and substantial", if the use of this products require a high degree of behavior change, they are doomed to fail. To me this is clearest and most lucid explanation on why the attitude "we want to be the best of class" by challenging an existing market leader, aka a "me-too" application fail 98% of the time. It is also why, writes Nir, users did not leave Google to move to Bing in significant numbers. Nir goes over the Fogg Behavior Model, one of the most lucid model on how to remove obstacles that stand in the way of users adopt a product. The technology to achieve these results are based on the teachings of The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab which "creates insight into how computing products ... can be designed to change what people believe and what they do." After at length descriptions of each element of the Hooked habit builduing model, Chapter 6, What are you going to do with all this?" is a must read. Before I wrote this review, I watched the movie "Silver Linings Playbook" where a character named Pat threw away all books that did not have a happy ending (like Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms") This is why Holywood's movies reach our hearts. We have enough strugles and tensions in our real life. We buy a habit forming product, because we like it. We like the iPods and Androids. We like FB and Google. The book by Nir Eyal teaches us, the product creators, how to make a product with a happy ending for everyone, Thus we elevate the quality of our lives.

I was blown away by Nir’s comprehensive yet concise analysis of human behavior. In Hooked we found a roadmap that would help us turn our app MessagePetz into something of real value for millions of kids and parents suffering from separation anxiety. We are very grateful for the gifts Nir and Hooked gave us. The first gift was the realization that by applying the concepts in Hooked, we could help more kids and parents faster & cheaper. The second gift was influencing our product design. Our mission is to create more frequent sharing of love and affection between kids & parents in a safe, secure and fun way. We created one interface for parents on the iPhone and separate one for kids on the iPad. The triggers, actions, variable rewards, and investment (The Hook Model) as applied to MessagePetz work harmoniously on both platforms to foster the nurturing, positive habit of sharing love and affection. The third gift was hope – something every startup needs in bulk. As we were designing MessagePetz, we ran experiments on our Facebook page, for example, "what is the difference in likes & sharing between the posting of a cartoon or real Teddy Bear?” These experiments provided valuable insights for our design process and also proved entertaining enough to help grow our Facebook Likes to nearly 50,000 from 45 countries. Two weeks ago we quietly put MessagePetz in the Apple App Store for beta testing. We have users in 10 countries and growing. The engagement levels of those who have successfully installed the app on both the iPhone and iPad is amazing. Daily engagement among successful installs is above 90% with one family in the Netherlands at 98%. We are very excited for the future for MessagePetz and grateful to be able to reduce the real pain of separation anxiety for kids and guilt for parents. If you want to be a force for good and delight your customers, Hooked will help you get there. Glenn Jones, CEO MessagePetz, Inc.

Behavior and technology have a tenuous relationship with one another; however, one has always tried to inform the other. Hooked by Nir Eyal presents a very interesting approach to how understanding habit formation (and behavior in general) can be helpful in reaching business-oriented goals for all professional levels. The simple truth is that majority of observable human behavior is primarily an instance of behavior elicited by an antecedent, and then rewarded (or punished). This behavioral relationship, when reinforced over time, becomes a habit. Sounds modest enough. Eyal’s explanation is elegant and easy to understand, centered around four events: Trigger Behavior Perform Action Variable Reward for Action Commitment to Product He manages to be both simple and accurate, and still only come in at a little over two hundred pages. It is in the unified and consistent approach to this behavior methodology and how it forms a habit where his content really shines. It should come as no surprise that the behavior model itself harkens back to an operant model of conditioning, but this in no way diminishes Eyal’s approach. His addition is commitment, which is the holy grail for behavior psychologists, as program adherence is difficult to maintain. Eyal sees this fourth step as an answer to a nebulous question. Let’s walk through his process. A potential customer is alerted to your service or product by a trigger; the behavior proceeds in short order. This feels firmly rooted in the antecedent-behavior relationship. Then comes the most important part: rewarding the behavior. Behavior psychologists (enthusiasts like myself) always err on the side of intermittent schedules of reinforcements, which is a fancy way of saying you don’t always get the reward, but it is offered frequently enough that the reward is constantly being chased. It is the variability in the reward that gives it real value, as it demonstrates both engagement and authenticity in the process, which then feeds future instances––and on and on it goes. Habit formation is the key to both delegation and hacking business growth. Learning what behavior relationships are not well formed allows you to free up time accordingly by having an assistant step in with a well-designed process for accomplishing those troublesome behaviors. Eyal offers both a time-saving technique, but also a more nuanced approach to nurturing leads and client relationships in general. The true strong suit of the book is its accessibility, making it a wonderful portal into applied behavior analysis for business. It is truly a well-written resource that both offers useful, actionable information and a contemplative experience for everyday readers on behavior engineering. If you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend that you do. This was originally posted on: [...]

I read this book because my manager recommended it to us. (I later found out that he didn't read it himself, but was subscribed to Eyal's blog.) I was lucky to have downloaded it while it was being offered for free, because I honestly would have been pretty pissed if I would have payed ten bucks for it. I will say, I do not know Nir Eyal and have no association with him, as it seems some of the reviews were written by friends and family. So, with all that in mind, here's my review... Nir Eyal has a very interesting model about how to build habit forming products. He touches on the characteristics and psychology of engaging products and gives the reader a new way to look at sites and applications. He touches on these subjects and doesn't go into depth and give many concrete examples and statistics. He does tend to go back to his favorite examples - facebook and Pinterest - quite a lot but I would like to have been offered more. He writes about his model quite a bit on his blog (http://www.nirandfar.com) and I didn't feel the book offered enough added value for his regular blog readers. If you've never read anything by Eyal, start with his blog. Notice that many of his posts are guest posts - so take note of who's writing what. I had a major issue with the language of the book. Eyal is not a native English speaker and it really shows when reading. The language in the book is more similar to what I'd expect to read in a blog. I would have appreciated polished writing. Also, there were multiple grammatical errors which I would easily skim over in a blog post but I am disappointed by the low level editing when I find such errors in a book. If you are going down the road of designing an app or a product, you should definitely be familiar with the concepts he lays forth in his model, but again, I think you can easily fish most of the information here out of his blog alone. In short, start by reading his blog. If you LOVE that, get the book. Otherwise, the blog is more than enough, in my opinion.

The book distills the essence of creating compelling products, in around 200 pages. It is an essential read for product managers and techpreneurs, eager to understand the psychology behind user engagement and retention. The author's methodical approach, backed by real-world examples, illuminates the path to designing products that not only capture attention but also sustain it. Here are some quotable nuggets: - “To initiate action, doing must be easier than thinking.” - “The odds of successfully designing products for a customer you don’t know extremely well are depressingly low.” - “Products that require a high degree of behavior change are doomed to fail.” - “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a superpower.” - “The first-to-mind solution wins.” - “Our labor leads to love.” While "Hooked" offers plenty of insights for creating habit-forming products, it also prompts reflection on the ethical dimensions of such designs. It’s rated 4 out of 5 stars, not just for the actionable strategies it offers but also for the thought-provoking discourse it contributes to the field of product design and technology. A must-read for anyone in the tech industry looking to make a mark with their products.

If you are in the business of building any kind of digital product, this book is required reading. I'm not kidding. If you don't read Hooked, you are at a HUGE disadvantage to competitors who have. Many business owners and startup founders mistakenly believe they have to persuade customers why their product is better. Wrong. The marketplace is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions. It's better to be first in mind than first in the marketplace. Identifying your value proposition and focussing on benefits (not features) is a good start. But it is not the smartest way. If you want to build an army of hooked users you need to cultivate a kind of addiction that embeds itself below the layer of consciousness. The only way to do this is through a tight feedback loop between the expectation of reward and a mental association with your product. When people are lonely, they open Facebook. When they are feeling downtrodden and unimportant, they open Twitter to see how many re-tweets and favourites they've scored today. When they're bored, they infinitely scroll pretty pictures on Pintrest. These three applications have been successful because they each created deep-rooted associations in the minds of their customers between some fundamental psychological need (connection, importance, boredom) and the product. Habit-forming technologies like Twitter and Facebook take hold when a pattern of trigger, action, reward, and investment, creates desire in the user while providing increasing amounts of value. The more users invest in a way of doing things through tiny bits of work, the more valuable the service becomes in their lives and the less they question its use. The book is written in clear, concise and practical language. At the end of each chapter is a list of "to dos" which can be implemented immediately, and a series of probing questions to ponder. If you read one "product book" this year, make sure it's this one.

A must read for all product marketers looking to increase customer engagement with products In today’s competitive, digital and AI landscape, creating a product that not only sells but becomes an integral part of customers daily routine is the holy grail for product marketers Nir Eyal, provides compelling roadmap to achieve just this. Here’s the breakdown that highlights key takeaways and their applications for marketing leaders Nir Eyal, ends the book with critical reflection on the 𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗶𝗰𝘀 of these techniques, it’s our responsibility to use these insights to enhance customer experience, not to exploit them. Nir Eyal’s wisdom is roadmap for creating products that stick. He says ”𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗼 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 𝘂𝘀𝗲𝗿 𝗵𝗮𝗯𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗲𝗻𝗷𝗼𝘆 𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝗮𝗹 𝗯𝗲𝗻𝗲𝗳𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝘁𝗼𝗺 𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗲” = 𝗖𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝗳𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝗩𝗮𝗹𝘂𝗲 Product marketers can use knowledge responsibly and shape products that aren’t just part of the routine but improve everyday life. Happy Reading!

本を読む醍醐味は多くの人が知らない事を知れる事ですが、その観点においてもこの本は非常に優れています。 既にこういった人達が仕掛けた習慣はあまりに強力すぎる故、依存症とまで呼ばれるようになってきました。そこの是非はさておき、それだけ強力に脳を支配して人間の行動を変えてしまう技術、それを体系化した素晴らしい本です。比較的読みやすい英語で書かれていた為スムーズに読めました。

New info , adds up to my knowledge ❤️

This book lays out important information in simple language and conceptual models about why people do the things they do and how to leverage that information ethically to build and sustain strong customer-client relationships. Of course this book is great for anyone with a business. But I discovered it’s also helpful in therapeutic practices that serve clients as opposed to customers. Behaviour analysts and psychologists will appreciate the reader-friendly and insightful interpretation of key behavioural and psychological concepts and be inspired to use these concepts to improve issues in their work such as therapeutic program retention or drop out of clients.

Goed geschreven boek en praktisch toepasbaar! De duidelijke voorbeelden en casestudies geven diepgang op hetgeen de auteur aan de lezer wil overbrengen.