Book Review- Hooked by Nir Eyal

Having worked on the creation of digital and also physical solutions, I was intrigued at Nir Eyal’s book, Hooked, which is about hoe to build habit forming products. This book is certainly useful, but I feel that most of this information could be presented in just a few chapters.

Companies economic value is a function of the strength of the habits they create.

Highlights

• The Fogg Behavioral Model was new to me, and I found it to be another tool to use when thinking about product decisions. While part of it seemed like common sense, having the formula to review when working with a product was helpful.

“The Fogg Behavior Model is represented in the formula B = MAT which represents that a given behavior will occur when motivation ability, and a trigger are present at the same time and in sufficient degrees.” (p. 62)

• I found the variable reward chapter to be probably my favourite in the book, as this is one of the elements that aren’t quite obvious. While I think we all know the value of a user receiving a reward of some sort for a step, I didn’t understand the data around the value of that reward is variable and unpredictable.

“Products utilizing infinite variability stand a better chance of holding on to users’ attention, while those with finite variability must constantly reinvent themselves just to keep pace” (p. 130)

• The investment was probably my second favourite concept revealed in the book. I think we often think of how users contribute to a platform, but I think the shift of viewing it as an investment (and part of the overall habit-forming process) is important.

“The timing of asking for user investment is critically important. By asking for the investment after the reward, the company has an opportunity to leverage a central trait in human behavior.” (p. 144)

• I am glad the author spends time thinking about how to ethically use these approaches and what organizations should do if they suspect that given a user’s actions that they are becoming addicted to a specific solution.

“As long as they have procedures in place to assist those who form unhealthy addictions, the designer can act with a clean conscience.” (p. 171)

Closing Thoughts

I think it brings a good amount of value for anyone who is making decisions on the formation or refinement of a digital product. It might just take you a little bit longer to get through than you would like.