The document discusses how habit-forming products use triggers, actions, variable rewards, and investments to create addictive "hook" cycles for users. It provides examples from apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. The document then analyzes how Pokémon Go successfully applied the hook model to achieve widespread popularity through nostalgia and social triggers, easy catching actions, variable rewards from found Pokémon, and time/social investments in the game.

1. Hooked
Chris Jimenez

2. How to Build Habit-Forming Products

3. The Facts!
79 percent of smartphone owners check their device within
15 minutes of waking up every morning.
A 2011 university study suggested people check their phones
34 times per day.
However, industry insiders believe that number is closer to
an astounding 150 daily.

5. First-To-Mind Wins
Companies who form strong user habits enjoy several benefits
to their bottom line.
These companies attach their product to “internal
triggers.” As a result, users show up without any
external prompting.

6. Instead of relying on
expensive marketing,
Habit-forming
companies link their
services to the
users’ daily
routines and
emotions

7. For Example!
A habit is at work when users feel a tad bored and
instantly open Twitter.
They feel a pang of loneliness and before rational thought
occurs, they are scrolling through their Facebook feeds.
But how does this works?

8. The Hook Model

9. Trigger
A trigger is the actuator of behavior — the spark plug in the
engine. Triggers come in two types: external and internal.

10. External Triggers
Email
Website Link
Or the app icon with in the phone (Badge)

11. Internal Triggers
You get attached to the product by an emotion.
They form habits.
For example you associate Facebook with the need of social
connection.

12. The 5 whys?
One method is to try asking the question "why" as many
times as it takes to get to an emotion.
This will happen by the fifth “why.”
This is a technique adapted from the Toyota Production
System described by Taiichi Ohno as the “5 Whys Method.”

13. The 5 whys
Let's say we're building a fancy new technology called email
for the first time.
The target user is a busy middle manager named Julie.

14. 1 Why?
Why #1: Why would Julie
want to use email?
Answer: So she can send and
receive messages.

15. 2 Why?
Why would she want
to do that?.
Answer: Because she wants
to share and receive
information quickly.

16. 3 Why?
Why does she want to do
that?
Answer: To know what’s
going on in the lives of
her co-workers, friends,
and family.

17. 4 Why?
Why does she need to know
that?
Answer: To know if someone
needs her.

18. 5 Why?
Why would she care about
that?
Answer: She fears being out
of the loop.

19. Aha! Fear!
Fear is a powerful internal trigger and we can design our
solution to help calm Julie’s fear.

20. Lets try it with Tapp!

21. Question!!??
What are Tapp external triggers?
What are Tapp internal triggers?
Who are Tapp target users?
How can we improve the triggers?

22. The Action

23. Action
Following the trigger comes the action: the behavior done in
anticipation of a reward.
The simple action of clicking on the interesting picture in
her newsfeed takes you to Pinterest
Its very related to the art and science of good Usability
design

24. Action
You have to leverage two pulleys of human behavior:
1.The ease of performing an action
1.And the psychological motivation to do it.

25. Quetions!?
Is Tapp easy to use?
What is the psychological motivation of users to use it?
What's the action that we want our users to perform after
they have Tapp? Can we improve on this?

26. Once the user completes the simple action of
clicking on the photo, he/she is dazzled by
what she sees next.

27. The Reward!

28. Variable Reward
What distinguishes the Hook Model from a plain vanilla
feedback loop is the hook’s ability to create a
craving.
Something that is predictable don't create Desire

29. Your Fridge
The unsurprising response of your fridge light turning on
when you open the door doesn’t drive you to keep opening it
again and again.
However, add some variability to the mix — say a different
treat magically appears in your fridge every time you open it
— and voila, intrigue is created.

30. Dopamine
Dopamine is one of the chemical signals that pass
information from one neuron to the next in the tiny
spaces between them
When most people talk about dopamine, particularly when
they talk about motivation, addiction, attention, or lust

31. The Reward
Research shows that levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine
surge when the brain is expecting a reward.
Creating a focused state, which suppresses the areas of the
brain associated with judgment and reason while
activating the parts associated with wanting and desire.
Slot machine, casinos, lotteries, variable rewards are
everywhere

32. When the user on Pinterest
Not only does she see the image she intended to find, but
she is also served a multitude of other glittering
objects.
The images are related to what she is generally interested
The exciting juxtaposition of relevant and irrelevant,
tantalizing and plain, beautiful and common, sets her
brain’s dopamine system aflutter with the promise of
reward.

33. Before she knows it, she’s spent 45 minutes
scrolling.

34. Question!
1.Is Tapp exploiting this model?
2.How can we improve on variable reward?
3.How can we reward the user in Tapp without giving them
points or prices?

35. Investment

36. Investment
The last phase of the Hook Model is where the user does a
bit of work.
The investment phase increases the odds that the user will
make another pass through the hook cycle in the future.
The investment occurs when the user puts something into the
product of service such as time, data, effort, social
capital, or money.

37. Investment
The investment implies an action that improves the service
for the next go-around.
Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual
assets, and learning to use new features are all
investments users make to improve their experience.

38. Pinterest
As the user enjoys endlessly scrolling through the Pinterest
site, she builds a desire to keep the things that delight
her. By collecting items, she’ll be giving the site data
about her preferences. Soon she will follow, pin, re-pin, and
make other investments, which serve to increase her ties to
the site and prime her for future loops through the hook.

39. Question?
How is Tapp users investing?
What can we do to improve investing?

40. A case study

41. The Stats
4/5 young people walking on the street were playing Pokemon
Go
National television is reporting it in prime-time news.
It took PokemonGo less than 5 hours to get to the top spot
of the US App Store.
Furthermore, people aren’t just downloading it and leaving

43. The Internal Trigger
Relive Nostalgia: PokemonGo is a second-coming. The seed
was planted more than a decade ago, in my formative
years. Like many others, I spent countless hours
capturing and training up Pokemon on our Gameboy’s.
Cure Boredom and Feel Connected: the more obvious internal
trigger is the same one that Facebook, Snapchat and
Instagram all feed on.
Be More Healthy: the game requires you to walk around
outside to play.

44. The External Triggers
FOMO: or the fear of missing out is insanely potent here.
Social Recognition: we want to show our friends how awesome
we are.
Sweet Marketing: Great trailers and social media.

45. The Action
How much effort is required to take an action.?
Not much it turns out. Because there are two primary actions
required to play the game and we already do these things
everyday!
1.To find Pokemon all you have to do is walk around outside
2.To catch Pokemon you simply flick the Pokeball at the
Pokemon to catch it.

46. The Variable Reward
As we walk around, open up the app for a second, we all
hope for that serendipitous Pokemon to appear on our
physical radar.
And all we have to do is “flick” that Pokeball and try to
catch it. This whole process, the chase, the catch, the
fear of missing out, these feelings are all giving us a
little hit.

47. In anticipation for the hit, we get a boost of
dopamine, the exact same chemical in our
brain that regulates the pleasure centres

48. The Investment
Time Spent—I’ve already spent a few hours, walking around,
catching Pokemon, levelling up, nurturing eggs, etc.
Social Network—perhaps the stronger investment is the one
that I’m not making directly. The fact that my own
friends are on it, that we’ll talk about it at lunch.

49. Gracias!