Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

By cycling through successive hooks, users begin to form associations with internal triggers, which attach to existing behaviors and emotions. When users start to automatically cue their next behavior, the new habit becomes part of their everyday

Gourville writes that products that require a high degree of behavior change are doomed to fail even if the benefits of using the new product are clear and substantial.

Gourville claims that for new entrants to stand a chance, they can’t just be better, they must be nine times better. Why such a high bar? Because old habits die hard and new products or services need to offer dramatic improvements to shake users out of old routines. Gourville writes that products that require a high degree of behavior change are do

As we will learn in chapter five, users also increase their dependency on habit-forming products by storing value in them

Like flossing, frequent engagement with a product — especially over a short period of time — increases the likelihood of forming new routines.

but there are other things that catch her eye as well. 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.

The Hook Model describes an experience designed to connect the user's problem to a solution frequently enough to form a habit. - The Hook Model has four phases: trigger, action, variable reward, and investment.

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

Rather, 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. These commitments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the rewar

Viral Cycle Time.”[25] Viral Cycle Time is the amount of time it takes a user to invite another user, and it can have a massive impact.