Article Archives
Here you’ll find all of our articles on topics on personal behavior design and consumer psychology. Whether designing customer behaviors or your own habits, you’ll benefit from understanding the research I share from user experience design, behavioral economics, and neuroscience.
Can Online Apps Change Real-Life Behavior?
Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Max Ogles. Max is an editor for NirAndFar.com and heads marketing for CoachAlba.com, a mobile health startup. Follow him on Twitter and read his blog at MaxOgles.com.Weight gain happens pound by pound, over many years, and...
What Tech Companies Can Learn from Rehab
Nir’s Note: This guest post is written by Max Ogles. Max is an editor for NirAndFar.com and heads marketing for CoachAlba.com, a mobile health startup. Follow him on Twitter and read his blog at MaxOgles.com.Last year, The Huffington Post published some fascinating...
Auction Addiction: This Online Industry’s Dirty Secrets
Nir's Note: This article about the psychology of auction addiction was authored by Lisa Kostova, one of the first product managers at Farmville and CEO and Founder of CareerClimb™. While at Zynga, Lisa learned how to shape user behavior, but in this essay she...
Teach or Hook? What’s the Real Goal of Online Education?
Nir's Note: This guest post is written by Ali Rushdan Tariq. Ali writes about design, entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation on his blog, The Innovator's Odyssey. As I clicked the big green “Take This Course” button, I became acutely aware of an uneasy feeling....
Using Mind Control to Raise Startup Cash
Nir's Note: This guest post is written by Michael Simpson. Michael is the co-author of The Secret of Raising Money, which he wrote with Seth Goldstein. Raising money for a startup is like sex. The more unattainable you seem, the better your chances of getting lucky....
How To Build Habits In A Multi-Device World
Nir's Note:Michal Levin asked me to write this essay for her new book, Designing Multi-Device Experiences. Allow me to take liberties with a philosophical question reworked for our digital age. If an app fails in the App Store and no one is around to use it, does it...
How To Cope with Your Insane Jealousy Of The WhatsApp Deal
Wednesday was my birthday. It should have been a great day. My wife and daughter had prepared a delicious breakfast, I had lunch with close friends, and I finished up some writing and client work. At the end of the day I headed to San Francisco to enjoy a swanky...
Why Do Fads Fade? The Inevitable Death Of Flappy Bird
Nir’s Note: Parts of this article are adapted from Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products. On February 8, 2014, an app called Flappy Bird held the coveted No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store. The app’s 29-year-old creator, Dong Nguyen, reported earning...
You’d Be Surprised By What Really Motivates Users
Nir's Note: This article is adapted from Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit-Forming Products, a book I wrote with Ryan Hoover and originally appeared on TechCrunch. Earlier this month, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone unveiled his mysterious startup Jelly. The...
Nostalgia: A Product Designer’s Secret Weapon
Nir's Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover, contributing writer of my book Hooked, describes how nostalgia is used to drive attention and build an engaging product. Follow @rrhoover or visit his blog to read more about startups and product design. Remember pogs?...
How You Can Help Users Change Habits
Nir’s Note: This guest post comes from Stephen Wendel, Principal Scientist at HelloWallet and the author of Designing for Behavior Change. Steve's new book is about how to apply behavioral economics to product development. Follow him on twitter @sawendel.It can be...
Is “Lean Startup” Right for Your Idea?
Nir's Note: Lyle McKeany is an entrepreneur writing and working on an early-stage startup. In this essay, he shares his experience using lean startup methodologies with my Hooked Model at the Lean Startup Machine conference. This article also appears today on Pando...
Hunting for Habits: Keying in on smart design to make a product irresistible
Nir's Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover describes the design decisions and strategies used to build a habit-forming product, largely influenced by the learnings on this blog. Follow @rrhoover or visit his blog to read more about startups and product...
Are Companies Too Obsessed With Growth? How to Measure Habits
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Abhay Vardhan, discusses how to measure the strength of user habits with cohort analysis and retention rate. Abhay is a founder of Blippy.com and blogs at abhayv.com. Follow Abhay on Twitter @abhayvardhan. Imagine an entrepreneur showed...
Refresh: The App a Secret Agent Would Love
A few minutes before his helicopter touched down in a covert military base just outside of Kabul, Afghanistan, Tommy Thompson reached for his secret weapon. He was about to meet with top Afghan officials and he needed to ensure he hit his mark. But Thompson's mission...
Angel or Devil: Who’s Really Investing In Your Start-Up?
This article originally appeared in the Harvard Business Review A friend called me heartbroken, crying. She had spent months looking for investors to fund her fledgling startup and now she had a big problem. Someone was ready to give her the money. Trouble was, the...
3 Ways I Use Technology to Find Happiness
Nir’s Note: This guest post comes from Brendan Kane who has built technology for MTV, Paramount, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, and the NHL. In this article, Brendan describes how he reprogramed the way he views the world using little more than his iPhone and iPad to find...
In 10 Years, We Won’t Use Personal Technology
Nir's Note: In this guest post, user experience designer Aaron Wilson, discusses a deep flaw of our digital devices and makes an audacious prediction about the future of consumer technology. Follow Aaron on Twitter @aarowilso. No one wants to make a mistake like the...
How to Break 5 Soul-Sucking Technology Habits
Nir's Note: In this last in a series of guest posts on the topic of technology habits, Jason Shah shares practical tips he used to regain control over his devices and break bad habits. Jason is a Product Manager at Yammer and blogs about user experience and technology...
4 Simple Things I Did to Control My Bad Tech Habits
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Sharbani Roy explores techniques she used to break bad habits related to eating, sleeping and exercising. Sharbani blogs at sharbaniroy.com and you can follow her on twitter @Sharbani. It’s 2 AM and you’re exhausted, but unable to...
The Real Reason You’re Addicted to Your Phone
Nir's Note: I no longer agree with this article. It's been several years since it was written by Avi Itzkovitch and published to my site and I'm leaving it up for posterity. But after extensive research, I do not think it properly depicts "addiction." Please see my...
“Yes, And”: The Two Words that Created a #1 App
Nir’s Note: In contrast to last week's post on the power of saying "no," Eric Clymer shares how a creative attitude helped his team build a #1 ranked app. Eric was the lead developer of the “A Beautiful Mess” app and is a Partner at Rocket Mobile.In improv comedy,...
The Power of No
Nir's Note: Is "no" the most powerful word in the English language? In this guest post Chikodi Chima explores the power of no and what happens when people say, "No." Chikodi is a former VentureBeat staff reporter who helps startups with their public relations and...
From Laid to Paid: How Tinder Set Fire to Online Dating
Nir's Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover takes a look at Tinder, a red hot dating app. Ryan dives into what makes the Tinder app so popular and engaging. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover. Tinder, a hot new entrant in the...
What if In-App Purchases Came to Real Life?
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Jonathan Libov explores free-to-play apps with in-app purchases, and takes a wry look into our future. You can connect with him on Twitter at @libovness or visit his website, Whoo.ps.Three-card Monte is a classic street hustler's game....
To Become a Superstar, Improve Your Strengths (Not Your Faults)
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Auren Hoffman, the CEO of LiveRamp in San Francisco. This essay is a bit different from the normal subject matter on the blog but I hope it will stir some discussion about which of our personal habits are worth improving. Connect with...
Hooking Users One Snapchat at a Time
Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Ryan Hoover. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at @rrhoover. When Snapchat first launched, critics discounted the photo-messaging app as a fad - a toy for sexting and selfies. Their judgements were...
How To Save Your Startup From The “Spotlight Effect”
Nir's Note: This guest post is by Max Ogles, a writer and entrepreneur based in Utah. Connect with him on Twitter at @maxogles.In the beginning of 2010, when daily deals site Groupon was really hitting its stride and copycat businesses were popping up left and right,...
Bible App: Getting 100M Downloads is Psychology, Not a Miracle
Nir's Note: An edited version of this essay appeared in The Atlantic. Below is my original. It’s not often an app has the power to keep someone out of a strip club. But according to Bobby Gruenewald, CEO of YouVersion, that’s exactly what his Bible app did. Gruenewald...
Why Behavior Change Apps Fail to Change Behavior
Imagine walking into a busy mall when someone approaches you with an open hand. “Would you have some coins to take the bus, please?” he asks. But in this case, the person is not a panhandler. The beggar is a PhD. As part of a French study, researchers wanted to know...
How to Boost Desire Using the Psychology of Scarcity
Interested in boosting customer desire? A classic study that demonstrates the psychology of scarcity reveals an interesting quirk of human behavior that may hold a clue. In 1975, researchers Worchel, Lee, and Adewole wanted to know how people would value cookies in...
Marketplaces & The Curse of the Network Effect
Ethan Stock lived the Silicon Valley dream. He had recently sold his company to eBay and emanated the tanned skin and relaxed composure you'd expect of someone who just cashed a big corporate check. But as we sat across from one another in a Palo Alto coffee shop, I...
Today’s Behaviors, Tomorrow’s Startups
Nir’s Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover takes a look at how new behaviors are shaping tech opportunities. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover. Startups that build a product attached to nascent behaviors have an opportunity to...
Venture Capital and The Superstitious Investor
Nir's Note: This guest post comes from my friend Jules Maltz, a General Partner at Institutional Venture Partners (IVP), a late-stage venture capital firm based in Menlo Park. In this article, Jules admits something few people are brave enough to say here in Silicon...
Think You Like What You Like? Think Again
A funny thing happens when you lie to people: they tend to believe. Why shouldn’t they? They lie to themselves all the time. Our minds are wired to respond in predictable ways--among them is perceiving the world the way we want to see it, not necessarily the way it...
The Roots of Temptation
How do products tempt us? What makes them so alluring? It is easy to assume we crave delicious food or impulsively check email because we find pleasure in the activity. But pleasure is just half the story. Temptation is more than just the promise of reward. Recent...
Our More Engaging World
Nir’s Note: A few weeks ago, I wrote a brief post summarizing some thoughts for a potential book chapter. I asked my readers for help and you delivered! The comments were fantastic and I received several insightful emails. Therefore, I've decided to continue with the...
The Future is Driven by Interface Changes
Nir’s Note: In this guest post Ryan Hoover takes a look at how interface changes drive innovation. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover.What do motorized vehicles, broadband internet, and smartphones have in common? These...
Why Business Is Obsessed With Habits
Nir's Note: This post is a little different from my normal writing. For one, its much shorter. You'll notice I provide fewer citations and the ideas are less developed than my previous essays. This is intentional and I need your help. I'm considering writing a chapter...
Viral Loops Or Viral ‘Oops’?
Not more than 10 days after it launched, the MessageMe chat app company happily announced it had grown to 1 million users. The revelation captured the attention of envious app makers throughout Silicon Valley, all of whom are searching for the secrets of customer...
Making a Marketplace
A Checklist for Online DisruptionOn November 13, 2012, Bill Gurley, a partner at Benchmark Capital, posted a remarkable essay on his blog. In it, he described the, “10 factors to consider when evaluating digital marketplaces.” Given the tremendous value marketplaces...
Why Positive Thinking is Bad For You
Oliver Burkeman's new book, The Antidote: Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, challenges many widely-held assumptions. In this video, Burkeman discusses how positivity, goal setting, and visualization, often backfire.Burkeman writes the This...
What Killed Turntable.fm?
Nir's Note: In this guest post, Ryan Hoover, Director of Product at PlayHaven, utilizes my thinking on the "Habit Zone" to shed light on where Turntable.fm fell short. Ryan blogs at ryanhoover.me and you can follow him on Twitter at rrhoover.Remember Turntable? When...
What You Don’t Know About Human Intuition Can Hurt You
Nir's Note: This guest post is by Francesca Gino, an associate professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the author of "Sidetracked: Why Our Decisions Get Derailed, and How We Can Stick to the Plan"A few years ago, Joe Marks, then Disney’s...
Designing to Reward our Tribal Sides
We are a species that depend on one another. Scientists theorize humans have specially adapted neurons that help us feel what others feel, providing evidence that we survive through our empathy for others. We’re meant to be part of a tribe and our brains seek out...
New Video – “Hooked: Building Habit-Forming Products”
My latest video overview of the "Hooked Model" Related Articles
This Will Be the Last Article You Read
If the Internet had a voice, I am fairly certain it would sound like the HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Hello Nir,” it said to me in its low, monotone voice. “Glad to see you again.” “Internet, I just need a few quick things for an article I'm writing,” I’d...
How Technology is Like Bug Sex
This week, thousands of people swarmed the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Looking from above, the scene resembled an insect infestation of scampering masses in a hive of the latest must-haves. When considering our complex relationship with technology,...
Time for Digital Hat Racks
The first thing Don Draper does when he gets to his office is give his busty secretary a suggestive wink. The second thing he does is take off his fedora. Finally, depending on the severity of the previous night, he completes his morning routine with a stiff drink....
Ways To Get People To Do Things They Don’t Want To Do
A reader recently asked me a pointed question: "I've read your work on creating user habits. It's all well and good for getting people to do things, like using an app on their iPhone, but I've got a bigger problem. How do I get people to do things they don't want to...
The Network Effect Isn’t Good Enough
Note: I'm pleased to have co-authored this post with Sangeet Paul Choudary, who analyzes business models for network businesses at Platformed.info. Follow Sangeet on Twitter at @sanguit. If there is one altar at which Silicon Valley worships, it is the shrine of the...
Escape From Message Hell
We are caught in an endless cycle of messaging hell and the pattern is always the same. First, a new communication system is born -- take email or Facebook, for example. Ease-of-use helps the product gain wide adoption and reach a critical mass of users. And then...
Mass Persuasion, One User At A Time
“Successful entrepreneurs recommend reading this article about the persuasion techniques companies use to drive engagement.” Scratch that, how’s this? “Tons of people are tweeting this article. Find out why.” OK, here's one more. “This article will only be on the...
How Investment Drives Engagement (Slides)
This week, focused on the science behind how consumers make decisions. During the class, we walked through my Hooked Model, a four-step cycle that creates preferences and usage habits. Readers of my blog will be familiar with the Hooked Model but I wanted to share...
Getting Your Product Into the Habit Zone
As the web becomes an increasingly crowded place, users are desperate for solutions to sort through the online clutter. The Internet has become a giant hairball of choice-inhibiting noise and the need to make sense of it all has never been more acute. Just ask...
Where Have The Users Gone?
Step 1: Build an app. Step 2: Get users hooked to it. Step 3: Profit. It sounds simple and, given our umbilical ties to cell phones, social media, and email inboxes, it may even sound plausible. Recently, tech entrepreneurs and investors have started to look to...
Infinite Scroll: The Web’s Slot Machine
A few years ago, everyone was clicking. Today, we’re all scrolling. Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Medium - it seems everyone is getting on the infinite scroll bus. What is it about this magical design pattern that has so many consumer web companies...
Designing User Habits Video
Video from my recent talk about designing user habits, at the Designers + Geeks Meetup in San Francisco on August 1st, 2012. Note: This Designing User Habits talk is similar to my "Behavior by Design" talk but has approximately 20% new material.If you're reading this...
Psychology of Sports: How Sports Infect Your Brain
Note: I co-authored this post with Andrew Martin and David Ngo. It originally appeared in TechCrunch. This week, fans packed stadiums in London wearing their nation’s colors like rebels ready for battle in Mel Gibson’s army. They screamed with excitement and anguished...
This is Your Brain On Boarding: How to Turn Visitors Into Users
Before you can change the world, before your company can IPO, before getting millions of loyal users to wonder how they ever lived without your service, people need to onboard through an effective user onboarding process. Building the on-ramp to using your product is...
User Investment: Make Your Users Do the Work
The belief that products should always be as easy to use as possible is a sacred cow of the tech world. The rise of design thinking, coinciding with beautiful new products like the iPhone, has led some to conclude that creating slick interfaces is a hallmark of great...
Behavior by Design Video
This presentation of my "Behavior By Design" talk was made possible by Innovation Endeavors, an early-stage venture fund in Palo Alto. Thank you to the Innovation Endeavors team for hosting me. Also, special thanks to Paula Saslow for the fantastic video production....
When Designing for Good Is Bad
We in the design business love when people do what we want. Nothing is more satisfying than when a user intuitively understands what to do with what we've built. At the heart of good design, however, is understanding what the user really wants to get done. But what of...
Stop Building Apps, Start Building User Behaviors
Do you get the feeling apps are getting dumber? They are, and that's a good thing. Behind the surprising simplicity of some of today’s top apps, smart developers are realizing that they're able to get users to do more by doing less. A new crop of companies is setting...
The Morality of Manipulation
Let’s admit it, we in the consumer web industry are in the manipulation business. We build products to persuade people to do what we want them to do. We call these people “users,” and even if we don’t say it aloud, we secretly wish every one of them would become...
The Next Secrets of the Internet
Right now, someone is tinkering with a billion dollar secret -- they just don’t know it yet. “What people aren’t telling you,” Peter Thiel taught his class at Stanford, “can very often give you great insight as to where you should be directing your attention.” Secrets...
User Growth and Engagement: A Hacker Metric
If you’re like me, you’ve had enough of the Facebook IPO story. For tech entrepreneurs struggling to build stuff, the cacophony of recent press is just more noise. That’s why when my friend Andrew Chen posted an insightful analysis of Facebook user data, I was happy...
Spotting the Next Facebook: Why Emotions are Big Business
Today Facebook will sell shares in one of the biggest tech IPOs in history. New investors will gobble up the stock to get a piece of the global phenomenon famously started in Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room in 2004. But while owning the stock will have quantifiable value...
Strange Sex Habits of Silicon Valley
My wife put our daughter to bed, brushed her teeth, and freshened up before bed. Slipping under the covers, we exchanged glances and knew it was time to do what comes naturally for a couple on a warm night in Silicon Valley. We began to lovingly caress--but not each...
The Billion Dollar Mind Trick: An Intro to Triggers
Note: I'm proud to have co-authored this post with Jason Hreha, the founder of Dopamine, a user-experience and behavior design firm. He blogs at The Behavioral Scientist.Yin asked not to be identified by her real name. A young addict in her mid-twenties, she lives in...
Why Everyone Hates I.T. People
Quick: what’s the biggest bottleneck in your company? Yup, we both know it’s the Information Technology department. Let’s face it, nobody likes IT people. For all of their technical wizardry, IT is where good ideas go to die. We follow their onerous documentation...
Hooking Users In 3 Steps: An Intro to Habit Testing
The truly great consumer technology companies of the past 25 years have all had one thing in common: they created habits. This is what separates world-changing businesses from the rest. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are used daily by a high...
Abolish The Reference Check
Variable Rewards: Want To Hook Users? Drive Them Crazy
Here’s the gist: Rather than using conventional feedback loops, companies today are employing a new, stronger habit-forming mechanism to hook users—the Hooked Model. At the heart of the Hooked Model is a variable schedule of rewards: a powerful hack that focuses...
How to Design Behavior (The Behavior Change Matrix)
Here’s the gist: The rising interest in the science of designing behavior has also sprouted dozens of competing -- and at times conflicting -- methodologies. Though the authors often flaunt their way as the only way, there are distinct use cases for when each method...
How To Design For “Normals”
Note: This post originally appeared in Techcrunch. I’m proud to have co-authored this post with Katy Fike, PhD. Dr. Fike is a gerontologist, systems engineer and Partner at Innovate50, a consulting firm helping companies create products and services for the 50+...
The Hooked Model: How to Manufacture Desire in 4 Steps
Type the name of almost any successful consumer web company into your search bar and add the word “addict” after it. Go ahead, I’ll wait. Try “Facebook addict” or “Twitter addict” or even “Pinterest addict” and you’ll soon get a slew of results from hooked users and...
User Habits: Why Startups Must Be Behavior Experts
NOTE: This post originally appeared in TechcrunchHere’s the gist: In the age of infinite online distractions, successful web businesses must generate new user habits to stay relevant. The strength of a web company’s user habits will increasingly equate to its economic...
What Is, and Is Not, Your Product’s Job
Recently, my mom came for a visit. She read my blog and discovered her son has a crazy habit of running barefoot. After some convincing, she begrudgingly accepted my rationale, especially after I showed her that a nice Jewish professor at Harvard said it’s ok. But...
Forming New Habits: Train to be an Amateur, Not an Expert
Note: I’m proud to have co-authored this post with my good friend Charles Wang. Charles is a co-founder of LUMOback, a former classmate, and an accomplished psychiatrist. He brings a great perspective to the art of Behavior Engineering.Here’s the gist: Forming new...
Pinterest’s Obvious Secret
Note: This article was first published in Forbes Executive Summary: Pinterest is onto something big, but few know its obvious secret. The success of Pinterest is because of its focus on reducing users' cognitive load. Pinterest brilliantly aligns its user experience...
Personalized eCommerce Is Already Here, You Just Don’t Recognize It
NOTE: This post originally appeared in Techcrunch. (Photo credits) Reading Leena Rao’s recent article on Techcrunch about the personalization revolution, you get the sense that the tech world is waiting for a bus that isn’t coming. Rao quotes well-known industry...
Where is the Web Going?
Here’s the gist: Disruptive web innovation comes from changes in interface. Interfaces, which make information easier to understand by mainstream users, create world-changing companies. The next stage of the web is the Curated Web, which like the stages before, will...
The Developer Divide: When Great Companies Can’t Hire
(Photo credit) Lately, I’ve noticed a startling paradox in Silicon Valley. I see shitty companies hiring more engineers than they know what to do with, while other, great companies struggle to fill open roles. Now my definition of “shitty” is completely subjective,...
Being a Quitter Makes You a Good Entrepreneur
This post is part 3 of a 3-part series. See part 1 here and part 2 here. When we look at successful entrepreneurs, it may appear that they spend their lives relentlessly driving towards a singular goal. We assume the path to success was a straight shot, lined with...
Why Your Goals Will Fail, and What You Can Do About It
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”- Warren Buffet If you’re like most people, you have a New Year’s resolution in place and you may have even stuck to it so far this year. Good for you! Realistically though, you’re...
Behavior by Design
A few weeks ago, I presented to the California Nutrition Education Program, a great group of educators working to help Californians lead healthier lives. My presentation was about how to use the Fogg Behavior Model along with some of my own techniques to design...
What A-Players Do That You Don’t
This post is part 2 of a 3-part series. See part 1 here and part 3 here.What if I told you I know of a guaranteed, foolproof way to get in the best physical shape of your life without strenuous workouts? How would you like to achieve success at work, without grueling...
Why You Should Run Your Business Barefoot
This post is part 1 of a 3-part series. See part 2 here and part 3 here. When I run, I don’t wear much clothing. Just my tighty whities and an old pair of Umbro shorts. I don’t wear shoes. Why I don’t wear shoes while running is another topic, but by the looks I...
Are you a Startup Star, Wacko, or Wannabe?
This week, I had the pleasure of presenting to the latest class of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs at the Founder's Institute. I discussed my thoughts on what entrepreneurs should do first when starting a new venture. Here is the video of the talk along with my slides...