What WILL Make A Computer/Phone Application Addictive?
I am almost at the halfway point of the software engineering immersive bootcamp at the Flatiron School campus in DUMBO, Brooklyn. Friends and acquaintances are already asking me to help them with the apps that they are trying to kickstart for their various enterprises/endeavors.
Last weekend, my friend Gauri presented a chance to work on something that I actually care about.
She came over to show me the prototype for an ocean education app she built a year and a half ago but hasn’t touched since. Currently, the prototype is essentially an interactive textbook. Gauri’s vision behind the app is to:
1) seed information about the ocean — and the threat of collapse its ecosystems are facing — into children at an early age by making the app a resource in elementary schools.
Having experienced dyslexia at a young age — as well as a learning style more fascinated by kinetic interactions rather than conventional static educational methods,
2) to create a textbook that would grab and grip the child’s attention through a combination of art and technology.
A bit of background: from a young age I was deeply saddened to hear about the disintegration of natural ecosystems across the planet. We are all pulled to care about some things more than others.The moment I learned what climate change was, the problem gripped me, for reasons that cannot be explained by upbringing, or any other aspect of personal history. And for some reason, oceanic ecosystems seize my fascination and protectiveness the most.
I’m immediately pulled to think of ways in which we can take her app to the next level. We both agree that our most far-reaching ambition would be to design an app designed to educate people (of all ages) about the ocean, that is as widely used as a Facebook or a Twitter. In the act of suspending disbelief, and imagining ways in which that dream could actually be possible, this article was born.
One thing was clear to me: in order for any app trying to “help the ocean” to be widely used, whether educational or not, it would have to be addictive. Gauri acknowledged this requirement immediately, and mentioned that she was planning to involve a small but simple game in later versions of the app. I insisted that any such game would have to be extremely addictive in order to hook people.
Here it becomes essential to discuss the basis of what makes web and phone applications addictive.
But first, we should acknowledge that the most successful applications are addictive.
Social media companies are deliberately addicting users to their products for financial gain, Silicon Valley insiders have told the BBC’s Panorama programme.
“It’s as if they’re taking behavioural cocaine and just sprinkling it all over your interface and that’s the thing that keeps you like coming back and back and back”, said former Mozilla and Jawbone employee Aza Raskin.
“Behind every screen on your phone, there are generally like literally a thousand engineers that have worked on this thing to try to make it maximally addicting” he added.
Energy and time is being spent trying to isolate and implement the principles that make programs addictive.
The web is filled with warnings and admonishments about the horrors of addiction. We are warned about how addictions are arise from boredom, a lack of life-satisfaction, or are general byproducts of capitalism and the modern system. People like Blaise Pascal warn us:
“Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries, and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.”
– Blaise Pascal
But no matter how much we are being warned, the fact is, no one is putting down their smartphones. The web, the networks, remain in more activity than ever.
And this global addiction — an addiction to connectivity via the Internet and other global networks that now binds us as a species — has shaped and is continuing to shape the world. There is no escaping the power of this “addiction” for the shaping the future we are entering step by step.
So why not capitalize on the tendency for human’s to get addicted to things, and make them addicted to a thing, where the more they use the thing, the better the world gets?
Two Commonly Implemented Principles of Visual Addiction:
1) Visual Addiction
The principle of addiction I want to address first is visual addiction. Visual tension is used everywhere in applications to bind the user to the application.
tension (n)
physical or mental strain or stress
a force created through stretching or pulling
the interplay of conflicting elements
a situation or condition of hostility, suspense, or uneasiness
a balance maintained in an artistic work between opposing forces or elements
The pattern of building tension and then releasing that tension is one of the most ingrained patterns on all human beings. Tension and release is at the heart of music, story, art, and pretty much all creative endeavors.
The tension and release pattern in music creates rhythm. In a mystery novel we call it suspense and resolution. In the visual arts, including design, it leads to things like hierarchy, focal points, and flow.
When we’re looking at a web page, the visuals we see can also be thought of as a snapshot in time. Tension adds visual interest and energy.
One of the most magical and impressive examples of visual tension is the infinite scroll. It is a truly magical design pattern.
The infinite scroll is interaction design’s answer to our penchant for endlessly searching for novelty. Certainly, there are technical reasons for the scroll’s increasing ubiquity. The rise of dynamic content, like a new comment entering the feed, necessitated a better solution than pagination built for static content. But to really understand why the scroll works so well requires a brief trip inside the mind and back in time.
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Nothing holds our attention better than the unknown. The things that captivate, engross, and entertain us, all have an element of surprise. Our brains can’t get enough of trying to predict what’s next and our dopamine system kicks into high-gear when we’re waiting to know if our team will make the field goal, how the dice will land, or how the movie plot ends. Like a loose slot machine, the infinite scroll gives users fast access to variable rewards.
Interestingly, our brain isn’t wired to seek pleasure alone. In fact, much of our motivation comes from alleviating the pain of desire. Dopamine levels spike when we’re just about to find reward and plummet after we receive it. To get us to do just about anything, evolution uses this chemical cascade to induce anticipation, motivation, and finally pain alleviation. Somehow we call this endless merry-go-round “fun.”
As a underwater photographer with years of scientific and commercial experience — as well as her previously mentioned experiences with dyslexia — her understanding of the need for an application to be visually-grabbing is high. But I think we all underestimate just how big a part visuals and design play in making an application not only successful but physiologically addictive.
1) Competition
Consider the successful video games of today. They too fulfill the “visual addiction” principle with their split-second visual interactivity and constant simulation of the unknown.
But they also play on one other crucial principal that makes things addictive.
The human being’s need to compete, and identify with their place in the hierarchy of a competition.
People are addicted to winning. But even when they are losing they are addicted to trying to win.
Assuming we can successfully make an addictive app, we are perhaps posed with a moral question:
Should we capitalize on the things that know will physiologically addict people to our app?
My answer is yes, specifically in the context of trying to create an app that will help educate people about the oceans.
On an intellectual level alone, the sheer fact that we can use simple designs to seduce millions and billions of people amazes me. And I’m curious about the principles — and the neurological/physiological cascades that underly these compulsions to use the app again and again. Weak on the design front, I want to unlock more of these and learn how to implement them myself.
But the ideal situation is one in which we can couple a a human’s compulsive action (some action they are compelled to repeat again and again) to an action that creates a positive impact. What is the action was one and the same?
Arguably, the thing that truly underlies the success of any app — how frequently, how pervasively it is used — is its ability to fill a major and pervasive void in human life. This may suggest that modern human life lacks the visual magic and speed that these apps provides — indeed nothing moves as fast as it does in a program or a game, on Earth.
If an app that saves the oceans can somehow couple itself to fulfilling a void in human life — rather than rely on human curiosity or goodwill alone — it could be the next Facebook or Instagram.
Of course, the next brain-storm is: how do we create such a couple? What single action could fulfill a selfish human desire and the wellbeing of an oceanic ecosystem at the exact same time?
