BOOK REVIEW

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products – Nir Eyal

A succinct lesson in behavior design, albeit misleadingly titled

           I picked this book up just as I was transitioning onto a new brand, where a strategy to push more frequent, habitual use amongst current users had been mulled around for some time. Previous teams on the business had opted not to activate against the idea given it represented a significant stretch from current consumer behaviour, but I wanted to think about it further and was hoping the book would offer some thought starters.

          A light and digestible read, this work is all about behavior design, the careful genesis of products that ingrain themselves into the routines of their users. Note I use the word ‘users’ rather than ‘consumers’ – within this particular choice of wording lies my slight indignation at the deceptive title. There is not a single non-tech example in over 200 pages, so the book’s intended audience is really entrepreneurs launching an app or website rather than product managers working in other industries such as consumer goods.

          Nonetheless, there are several valuable learnings throughout Eyal’s explanation of his habit-forming model, which begins with the Trigger phase, before proceeding to Action, Variable Reward and Investment, subsequently cuing users with another trigger to prompt re-use. He delivers a clear delineation of external triggers, like Facebook’s prompt to wish one’s friends happy birthday, and how they evolve to internal triggers, such as being conditioned to check Instagram when bored in line at a store. Perhaps my favourite takeaway was Dr. Fogg’s Behavioural Model, represented as B=MAT where a behavior can only occur given the convergence of motivation, ability and a trigger in the same moment.

          While much of the content was not translatable directly to my new brand, I still enjoyed being prompted to think deeply about my business and its corresponding consumer journey. It is evident that Eyal has drawn on a lot of work and experience to sketch the user flow outlined in his model, but I think a good next step would be to build this out for those marketers who work on products outside the sphere of technology. 

-NP, March 2015