Design effective "user behavior and feedback effect" loop

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[Core Tip] The product we build is full of feedback loops. Behavioral studies also show that feedback loops play an important role in people's decision-making. The original author Loren Baxter is the designer of the case Readyforzero.

No matter what product you are designing, it always involves a cycle of "user behavior and feedback effects." In many cases, a good and effective feedback loop (feedback loop) is an important factor in determining whether a product will succeed. In this article, let's take a look at how a carefully crafted feedback loop can affect user behavior.

What is feedback loop

The feedback loop consists of the following links:

A person initiates an act

The act produces one or more effects

Some of these important effects are somehow fed back to the behavioral promoters.

The behavior promoter continues to produce new behavior based on the feedback received, so that the rules circulate.

Feedback loops are ubiquitous in our real life and can reveal whether people are making the right choices. A person who eats bad things will feel nauseous and will have a repulsive behavior in the future, while eating good things can feel happy and sweet. If you are kind to others, and the other person in the same way to feedback, you will feel very happy, if a person to harm their body, the body will have problems-our brain seems to have a set of such a reward and punishment mechanism.

In addition to these natural feedback loops, there are numerous examples of "man-made". We take the exam, based on their knowledge of the degree of mastery to obtain the corresponding results, to their next study to guide the adjustment; We update our status on social networking sites, get "praise" or comments from others, get a sense of presence and identity, create the desire to continue releasing content, and so on.

Then let's dig deep into the feedback loops in the product.

Explore basic feedback loops in a product

First we need to identify the feedback loops in the product and see what regular "behavioral-feedback" loops are needed for the user to participate.

Many social applications have a basic set of feedback loops: Users publish content, other users see the content, click "Like", and then feed back to the publisher, generating momentum to continue the release.

Other types of feedback loops are less intuitive. Take Yelp, for example, a hotel offers food and beverage services, and better services usually bring better reviews; customers come to Yelp after their meal, and the comments themselves get evaluations from other users (through "useful", "somewhat interesting", "cool" buttons). Some users who publish a sufficient number of reviews also enjoy certain "privileges", such as attending a party or becoming a "Yelp elite." These feedback loops are well designed to effectively keep users on the site and continue to post content-which is valuable to Yelp, businesses, and users themselves.

Try to find this cycle of "user behavior and feedback effects" in your product and make a list. They may involve a wide range of areas, including the digital world and the real world of information communication, online interpersonal interaction, and so on, in addition to the time may also have a large span. By carefully observing the links that users generate behavior and trigger the transmission of information, those who interact directly and indirectly with each other or with the site itself are fertile soil for feeding feedback loops.

Enhancements and improvements

Find the most important feedback loops in your list that are most closely related to product core values, and try to enhance or improve on the following points:

Speed

Scalability

Target context

And the relevance of motivation

1. Speed

It's too slow!

Problem: The slower the feedback effect appears, the lower the impact on the user's next behavior decision.

The so-called "timeliness" problem. For example, it may take several years for a user to produce an investment in a financial-type product, a typical slow feedback.

Solution: Output feedback effect as soon as possible, Shorten cycle. On the one hand, you can try to improve the output efficiency of the feedback effect; In addition, in the case of no reduction in the waiting time, you can also try to use the simulation method, before the user to make the actual behavior of the feedback to provide the results for their reference, as long as the simulation of the feedback effect is rational but not fabricated, will have a certain effect. such as the investment behavior mentioned earlier, after the user selects an investment, and before executing the investment decision, it can provide the simulation results based on their investment quota and the actual market rules, so that the users have a general understanding of the situation that will happen after the investment to help them make the decision.

Readyforzero's approach is a good example. They provide the tools to help people manage and repay their debts. In this link shown in the diagram, as we can see, the tool is able to calculate the debt repayment details of the next few years based on the payment plan chosen by the user, including the total amount, the amount of time and money saved, and so on, so that the user can know clearly before making the decision and choose the most suitable solution for themselves.

The push mechanism of mobile application is also a representative form of quick feedback. When you post a piece of content on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, the attention-cell phone will soon receive a push tip, a powerful feedback loop. Be sure to try to apply the push mechanism in the appropriate way in the right product.

Conversely, sometimes slow feedback loops are what some types of products really need, and for such products it is important to reduce the user's perception of feedback effects. Let's look at an example of an offline world: credit cards. These little cards help banks make huge profits by slowing down a painful feedback loop-consumers take out their hard-earned money from their wallets, make repeated choices, and then pay for what they want; Credit cards effectively delay negative feedback, keep you on the go when you're spending, and you'll only get anxious every month when you receive the bill; even in this anxiety, you can still choose to delay negative feedback and pay only the minimum, and the bank can earn more interest on your comfort.

2. Scalability

What's the comparison?

Problem: Vague, unable to quantify the feedback effect of the next step is difficult to become the basis for behavioral decision-making.

For example, the "intake of nutrients" thing is a name for the feedback effect. How do people know they eat well? If you tell them that what you just ate isn't healthy, how unhealthy is it? If the feedback effect can be presented in a way that is related to reality and can be quantified, it will be much better understood and can play a real guiding role in people's dietary behavior. Nutrition labels are born to this, and through it, people can learn how to eat an apple what good things, eat a lump of bacon will bring about the problem, and so on.

Solution: Just like the Dietary nutrition label, we also want to output feedback to the user in a quantifiable way in the product. Try some visual, comparable presentation, because the human brain is better at comparing the properties of physical things to size and position.

Klout is in their products through the "Klout score" to show the social influence of users, it fully embodies the "quantifiable", "visualization" of the importance of information transmission.

That's a pretty interesting way to do it. It must be acknowledged, however, that it is based on a relatively limited set of "social indicators", such as the number of flowers received, the number of times praised, the amount of commentary or forwarding, and so on, that the indicators are not credible enough for the concept of "social influence", The final feedback result is difficult to accurately reflect the actual situation.

Take a look back at the Readyforzero case. If you just tell the user that they have to pay 150,000 of dollars, it's no different from telling them "you need a lot of money" because such a total is very clear, but it's hard to give people a sense of the concept. Also tell users how much they need to pay each day, so that users can compare this amount to their daily consumption, such as coffee or lunch, to create a clearer understanding of the information and make it easier to choose a repayment scheme.

3. Target context

What does that mean?

Problem: The expression of feedback content lacks the target context, and the information lacks the sense of direction.

Saving extra spending will feel good, but it makes sense to understand that the total amount of savings you can save is more meaningful. "My goal is to save money for my vacation and now I have saved 500 yuan, reaching one-third of the total target," he said. "This form of information not only expresses the current state, but also indicates the specific objectives of the behavior, as well as the relationship between the current state and the goal, more in line with people's thinking framework for day-to-day thinking." For example, "You've spent 1200 dollars this week," and "you spent 1200 yuan this week, when the weekly budget for 700 yuan, currently overspending 500 yuan" compared to, although the data is the same, but the latter's meaning is clearly more clear, more sense of direction, for the user's next behavior decision more guiding role.

Solution: Place the information in the context of the overall goal, and let the user know how far the current state is from the final goal.

A clear goal is like setting anchor points so that they are ready to assess the position of the current state in the overall process, and as long as there is a distance between the target, the user will have the initiative to move forward.

The Nike Energy wristband and many of the same types of products are typical cases of building feedback loops around user behavior and goals. Such products can track the user's physical behavior, compare the current data to the target, and output the report information to the user and share it online. Whether it's a mobile application or a watch or wrist strap, the product's interface usually uses a progress bar to show the status and goals.

4. Relevance to Motivation

I don't care.

Problem: Feedback that has little relevance to the user's true motives has little effect on the user's subsequent behavioral decisions.

"Game" feedback cycle does have some influence, but for many types of products, points, badges, such as the feedback form and the product itself and the user motivation is not much relevance, their incentive role will not be lasting. Most of the time, users do not care about points, they are really concerned about health, happiness, family relations and wealth and so on. Think about which of the following things do you want: 30 Foursquare points, 30 compliments on Facebook, extra 30 minutes per day, and 30 dollars. The answer will vary, but I bet the first one is not as much as the two behind it.

Solution: Tap into what users really care about, think about their behavioral motivations and goals, provide appropriate forms of feedback, and motivate them to achieve their goals. For some types of products, socialization of "rewards", such as commentary and praise, can indeed be effectively linked to the motivation of interpersonal relationships; things that make people feel good and comfortable are usually better suited to the goal of "health", and the range of money is wide.

Readyforzero has used a number of important feedback methods to promote user-initiated payment behavior. First, they use the progress bar to show the user clearly the current selected payment scheme for the completion of the debt repayment objectives of the promotion, the visual presentation of the information content and the user's heart "to achieve the goal of" the desire to link up. In addition, users can learn how the payment scheme can help them save on interest and time, both of which have a very strong behavioral decision-making role in the goal of "debt repayment".

Of course, it is not easy to grasp the user's motives comprehensively and accurately. There are many theories in this field, and one of the more worthy of learning is the theory of self determination (self-determination germ). The theory holds that people have a full understanding of individual needs and environmental information, and will make autonomous choices for individual actions. In this framework, the motivation of human behavior is generated internally, not by the outside world.

In addition to these theories, we are familiar with the use of research methods are used to understand the needs of users and behavioral motives of reliable weapons.

Two points to remember

In addition to the above four points, we need to remember two things in the design work.

1. Consider the actual effect

When you identify an important feedback loop in your product, and then do it with the above four points, remember to consider the performance of the design solution in the actual product; it is meaningless to test the improvement of the effect by quantization

"Data analysis" for the designer itself, in fact, is equivalent to a feedback loop: you design or improve some of the product information feedback mode, and then through quantitative statistical analysis to verify their own plans, the next work to guide. Select several of the most critical indicators to track their performance in several of the most critical context-case scenarios, and also on the frequency of reporting to incorporate the reality of their own products.

2. The moral criterion of the product

The "ethical" elements included in each decision are evaluated throughout the design process. Improving feedback loops to drive users to make the behavioral decisions that we want-which is more or less a work of social responsibility for you and your team. Are you building an application that helps people improve their health, a tool to improve their productivity, or a slot machine?

Zynga's business model revolves around a series of extremely effective feedback loops, where the commercial value of some of the cyclical patterns is often blamed for moral factors. For example, they pass the progress bar, goal setting, identity level, social incentives and other ways to effectively make "happy farm" as a profitable product, but some negative voices come along with it, many people think that Zynga is by consuming the time, money and creativity of users to profit, Their business model is based on manipulating people's emotional and behavioral motivations.

This kind of question is indeed controversial, especially for game products, to "value", "fun" and other concepts of accurate positioning is not easy, and beyond the scope of the topic discussed in this article. In short, what we should do, as designers, is to create products that will make the world a better place by using reasonable rules of design.

Summary

Design can influence people's behavior decision making, and the "User behavior and feedback effect" cycle is well designed to promote the effect. Focus on the speed, scalability, target context and motivation relevance of information feedback mode, help users better understand and achieve their own behavioral goals, and through quantitative analysis methods to consider the impact of feedback cycle on user behavior, You may actually find that you are improving the quality of people's lives through improved product experience.

Original address: http://www.geekpark.net/read/view/173099