Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Nir Eyal defines addictions as “persistent, compulsive dependencies on a behavior or substance” (34). He claims: “Addictions, by definition, are destructive” (34). Eyal’s definition of addiction contrasts an extreme form of dependence with habits. He uses this definition of addiction to explain why he disapproves of designers trying to make their products addictive to users; Eyal argues that this is an unethical use of persuasive design. 

An external trigger is something outside of the consumer’s mind which prompts them to engage with a product. Examples of external triggers include website links, company newsletters, app icons, notifications and emails, and advertisements. According to Eyal’s Hook Model, users must experience successive Hook cycles prompted by external triggers before they develop the internal triggers necessary to form a subconscious habit.

Eyal borrows psychologists’ definition of habits as “automatic behaviors triggered by situational cues” (1). He observes that habits are, by definition, unconscious behaviors; he argues that users should find products so engaging and useful that they integrate them into their daily routines by forming subconscious feelings and reactions around them. Eyal’s work explains why humans have developed the capacity for habitual responses and some of the mental biases and phenomena that inform their habits.