Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products
Ratings82
Average rating3.9
Short and quick read. But powerful. Liked the fact that he encourages users to question the morality of using these ideas. Also gives a good summary of how our brain forms habits.
After hearing Nir give a local talk at a user group, I knew I had to check out his book. It's been on my list to read for far too long. The concepts from the book a 10/10. They're a great dive into user behavior and what triggers change in people. I feel like I learned a lot, even if the book is rather short.
The downsides though - the audiobook narrator feels like he's reading a technical manual. It's just not a good listen. Looking at the Audible reviews it's non-stop 1 star reviews for performance. The other side is that this book requites a good deal of reflection time. That's not a good fit for the audio format. I felt like I learned more from hearing Nir talk live for an hour than from the book, but I still look forward to referencing it later in products I'm building.
After hearing Nir give a local talk at a user group, I knew I had to check out his book. It's been on my list to read for far too long. The concepts from the book a 10/10. They're a great dive into user behavior and what triggers change in people. I feel like I learned a lot, even if the book is rather short.
The downsides though - the audiobook narrator feels like he's reading a technical manual. It's just not a good listen. Looking at the Audible reviews it's non-stop 1 star reviews for performance. The other side is that this book requites a good deal of reflection time. That's not a good fit for the audio format. I felt like I learned more from hearing Nir talk live for an hour than from the book, but I still look forward to referencing it later in products I'm building.
Really good book on the components you need to build into your product to build engagement habits in your users.
Very similar with “Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman in a way that aims to provide insights about how human mind works and how that can be exploited on the road of product creation and innovation. Even if the former was a more deep reading on the subject, the comparisons with real-world products were good. Some real world (and very obvious) examples were provided (Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat) but that was expected.
I liked the fact that it spoke about Framing and Anchoring effects and if you get interest in that, definitely give a read to Kahneman's book. It is a masterpiece.
Very fast read. Eyal opens this book with an emphasis on addictive product development - that put me on edge and caused me to read the rest of the book more critically and with a grain of salt.
After that brief intro, Hooked jumps right into the model/cycle of habit-forming products:
1. Trigger
2. Action
3. Variable Reward
4. Investment
Although not every product or feature should use this cycle, it's a solid model to apply in many cases. Something I should look for in my work - and a pattern I see in OneDrive and other products.
That said, there was little new content for me in this book. There's merit to its simplicity, but I was looking for more meat.
Even with my “low” rating, I'd recommend this to anyone working in product development.
A deep dive into what creates an habit and on how to build addictive apps / website, create new behaviors. This book is a must read for every app or website builder, or every person with an interest into building something that users will come back to use often. I really like the moral point of view offered at the end of the book, which shines a light into the entrepreneur's mission and gives a moral compass to follow.
Hooked has novel and actionable ideas on how to make your product habit forming (hopefully in an ethical way). If you're the target audience, that should be enough to make you want to read this.