Hooked - Libro en Inglés

Hooked – Nir Eyal

Why do some apps and products become part of our daily routines, while others are quickly forgotten? Why do people check their phones dozens of times a day without thinking? Nir Eyal, a writer, lecturer and former consultant in the technology and gaming industries, set out to understand how successful products create habits. In Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, written with Ryan Hoover, he presents a framework for designing them.

Eyal introduces the Hook Model, a four-step cycle that he says underlies many habit-forming products. The first step is a trigger, either an external cue such as a notification or an internal cue such as boredom, loneliness or curiosity. The second is an action, a simple behavior done in anticipation of a reward, made more likely when the action is easy and the user is motivated. The third is a variable reward, an unpredictable payoff, such as new messages or content, which drives continued engagement. The fourth is investment, in which users put something into the product, such as data, content, followers or effort, which makes it more valuable and loads the next trigger.

Eyal illustrates the model with examples from well-known companies and draws on research in psychology and behavioral economics. He also addresses the ethics of building habit-forming products, offering a framework to help designers consider whether their products genuinely improve users’ lives.

Concise and practical, Hooked has been widely read by entrepreneurs, product managers, designers and marketers.

Readers should note that the techniques it describes have drawn criticism for contributing to compulsive technology use; the author later wrote a book on resisting distraction.