Habit forming apps: How successful companies are building it and what we can learn!

Let’s admit it: We are hooked to our phones.

Published in

UX Planet

5 min readFeb 21, 2019

An average mobile user checks his phone 150 times per day[1]. Is it merely luck that apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Candy Crush have become deeply ingrained in our day-to-day life? — Not at all.

These companies, through careful research, analysis, and experimentation have cracked the holy grail of hooking users on their app to “create a habit”. Most companies haven’t even heard of or experimented with this.

It’s what separates the apps that you use every day to the majority that’s used exactly once [3].

So how are these apps creating a habit anyway?

Nir Eyal researches and has experience in applying techniques to manipulate and motivate users to create beneficial behavior. He proposes a 4-step cycle for a habit-forming product called “The Hook”.

A habit-forming product, according to the “hook-model”, follows the 4-step cycle :

1. Trigger (Cue): A trigger makes your brain go into automatic mode and perform an action. This could be an external trigger (push notification, emails, paid advertisement) or an internal trigger (loneliness, boredom, fear, discomfort) to create the urge to do an action.

For example: An external trigger through a Facebook push notification when a friend posts on your wall. This causes you to perform an action.

2. Action (Behaviour or Routine): A behavior or action performed in response to the trigger.

For example: Checking Facebook to read your friend’s post after receiving a trigger. Such as when you receive a push notification.

To start an action or Behavior (B), it requires a Trigger (T) to activate the behavior along with the user having the sufficient Motivation (M) and Ability (A) to complete the action. This Fogg Behavior Model is represented in the formula B = MAT

3. Reward: The reward or benefit of doing the routine, which tells your brain if this loop is worth repeating for the future. This can be in the form of receiving attention, feeling accepted, feeling important, having a sense of competency, etc.

For example: A sense of feeling important when reading a Facebook post.

B. F. Skinner has found that making these rewards unpredictable and random amps up the effect of the reward (a common practice used at the casino slot machines)

4. Investment: Allowing the user to put small work (“investment”) in the product. This makes the user place a disproportionately higher value on the product (also called the “IKEA effect” [4]) because they contributed to the product. These investments are about the anticipation of longer-term rewards, not immediate gratification.

For example: Replying and starting a conversation on a Facebook post. Whilst there is no immediate gratification, the reply makes you expect a response, which keeps you coming back for more.

What’s the process of creating a habit-forming product?

Building habit-forming products is an iterative process. The three main steps on creating a habit-forming product are:

Recreate the journey of a successful user
Iterate touch-points for the potential of habit-forming
Analyze quantitatively and qualitatively

Recreate the journey of a successful user:

The first step of building a habit-forming product is to understand what works. To do this, take a successful user (paying customer, evangelist) and retrace their steps backwards. Map out all the touch points, from the first interaction until becoming a successful user.

Then, using the ‘Hook Model’ discussed above, identify a weakness in the existing product and test new ideas for the potential of habit-forming. You can tailor the journey of all users to take the route of your successful user.

Iterate touch-points for the potential of habit-forming

Charles Duhigg in his book suggests a method to alter habits. He suggests: To adopt a new habit or to change an old one, start by identifying the cue (trigger) and the reward of an existing habit and then replace the routine (action) of the old habit with the new one.

He also recommends keeping the cue and the reward as similar as possible because habits are so ingrained in our brain that we are frustrated by the change in the routine. This is clear from experience, with the outcry that happens when Facebook pushes a new redesign even when it’s for good [5].

Here are a few things to consider when changing a routine:

Make incremental iterations: Reduce the impact of change by changing small things only. Use A/B testing tools to conduct small incremental iteration without coding.
Allow an opt-in: Consider allowing opt-in for the change, so you do not annoy your existing loyal users.
Use onboarding tools: Whilst the iteration ideally should be intuitive enough so that it doesn’t require onboarding, you might still need to guide the user along the path.

Analyze both quantitatively and qualitatively:

Analyze the effect of changes using both qualitative and quantitative tools for evaluating whether the journey you have iterated upon is moving users towards the direction of your successful user.

Quantitative tool for data analysis: Use quantitative analytics tools such as Mixpanel and Google Analytics to understand which users are along the journey to success.

Through data analysis, we can form a hypothesis on what can be improved and tested out.

Qualitative tool for UX analysis: Use a qualitative analysis tool such as UXCam which allows you to see how your users are using your product and understand their journey.

It lets you see how users are completing an action to understand if users are doing a task habitually. This helps you identify cues and routines that impact the user’s behavior.

Going Beyond

Companies are using habit-forming techniques to build a product that “hooks users” and makes them come back regularly. Whilst it’s a space that has recently gained traction, the techniques for building habit-forming products are advancing and maturing as we speak.

Stay in the loop by grabbing these incredible books by Nir Eyal and Charles Duhigg and following experts such as BJ Foggs and Robert Cialdini.