This document discusses the Hook model for designing habit-forming mobile apps and services. It introduces concepts like triggers, actions, and rewards that encourage repeated use and turn behaviors into habits over time. The document provides questions to help identify triggers for the target users, appropriate actions and rewards, and ways to encourage investment of time, data or other resources to strengthen the hook. It also discusses how to test if habits are forming through analytics and identifying where users quit or are most engaged in the app.

1. Mobile apps
Quality Assurance of tomorrow

2. HOOK METHODOLOGY
BY NIR EYAL
Introduction to

3. What are your apps used for?
• What kind of needs do your apps meet?
• What kind of problems do they solve?
• When/in what situations do you reach for this
type of app/product?
• Does the app/product include any element that
would encourage you to devote your time/effort
in using it?

4. Facts…
• 79% smartphone owners check device
within 15 min of waking up
• Cognitive definition of habit: „automatic
behaviour triggered by situational cue”
• Customers actions may be engineered

5. Americans spend 162 minutes on their
mobile device per day

6. Hook’s methodology

7. For whom is the service designed?
• Who will be the target user (end user) of the service?
– Segmentation: defining target group/target groups
– Which needs of the target group does the service fulfill?
– Why may your product be valuable for given target
groups?

8. Workshop: For whom is the service designed?
Create a virtual client: name, age, situational background
3 descriptions:
I would like to have/achieve/get <benefit>
In the context of designing an application for each imaginary person
define:
3 needs fulfilled by product you design,
3 problems/limits/pain points – that our application will address
3 thoughts that trigger ”pain”

9. Trigger – event that causes particular
action
External – trigger from the outside
Internal – emotion

10. Trigger
In what moments/situations should our user be willing
to use our solution?
Which of the users’ behaviours do we want to transform
into habits (habits of using our app/service/product)?
Which situations can be called triggers?
Every time the user <trigger> then <first habitual action>

11. Trigger
Which of the external triggers can be used (notification, email,
note, etc.)? Both conventional and those really weird…
In which moment should they be activated?
How can external triggers be brought closer to the internal
ones?

12. Actions – the process of doing
something
Actions…meaning simplest behaviour which the user should
exhibit in order to get a reward…
Motivators:
– seeking pleasure or avoiding pain,
– seeking hope and avoiding fear,
– seeking social acceptance while avoiding social rejection
How many steps must the user take before he/she gets a
reward?
Can this process be simplified or turned into a game?
How should a user „act” before he/she gains a reward?
Which actions should be rewarded?

13. • B=MAT
• behavior = motivation*ability* trigger
• Fogg's behavior model - behavior
happens if
– trigger is present
– user has sufficient ability
– user has sufficient motivation

14. B=MAT
To increase desired behavior
• ensure clearer trigger
• increase ability
• align with motivator
Three Core Motivators
• seeking pleasure and avoid pain
• seeking hope and avoiding fear
• seeking acceptance and avoid social rejection
Ability is influenced by six factors (at the moment)
• Time - how long it takes to complete an action
• Money - the fiscal cost of taking action
• Physical effort - the amount of labor involved in taking the action
• Brain cycles - level of mental effort and focus required to take an action
• Social deviance - how accepted the behavior is by others
• Non routine - how much action matches or disrupts existing routines

15. Reward
Is the reward of variable/random nature?
Is the user aware what reward he/she will get?
Will the reward be satisfying for the user?
Does the user feel pleasure after being rewarded?
Was the reward pleasant suprise for the user?

16. Reward – areas of rewarding

17. Investment
Investment comes after variable phase of the reward as a
result of directly taken actions. It aims at triggering the
feeling of expecting a reward (looking forward to be
rewarded) in the future, therefore it increases the
likelihood of the user reaching out for the service again.
Types of investments: Money, Social capital, Personal
data, Emotional commitment, Time Effort

18. User investment
Brainstorm: 3 ideas of small investments to be added to
the product so that the user could ” load” them for the
future ”use”
Evaluate how long it will take from the „investment” to
„trigger”
… reputation, skills, data, content, etc.

19. Habit testing
How can you track/monitor the user’s habit formation?
- Appinsight
- Use path
Is the app used according to your initial assumptions?
In which places do users usually quit the app?
Which screens trigger most user activity?
Does the Investment result in retrieving the user – as
planned?
Can the time of trigger->investment process be shortened?
Can the process be simplified?