How to retain Users

The first step is to build an application, and the second step is to get the user hooked on it, making a third step. It sounds simple, but it's not just an application issue, it's also closely related to cell phones, social media, and e-mail. Recently, High-tech entrepreneurs and investors have begun to study how psychology changes user behavior.

Although some people think that if the product is popular, they should first understand the user's habits, so as to build the product advocates. But in fact, it is very rare to successfully build a long-term habit between users. Changing a user's behavior requires not only understanding how to persuade users to take action--for example, when a user first logs on a Web page, it takes a long time to study the behavior differently.

The good news is that some companies have done this difficult research. Taking Google, Apple, Twitter and Android as examples, as we enter their world, as Paul Graham introduced, everything will become increasingly addictive, the company has successfully controlled the user's habits, become the industry tomorrow.

Habit or hype

Claiming that the habit of researching users has yielded results, is it possible for every company to successfully change the behavior of users if it provides formulas or guidelines for how to create a user's habits? This is obviously unrealistic.

Zynga, whose business model depends on the millions of people obsessed with its games, is now experiencing the loss of employees, users and investors. What is the plateau because users are no longer addicted to it?

It turns out that liking a certain discipline, redefining user habits, all explain why some products have lost interest to users, but that is just a manifestation of the user following the trend, fleeting.

Habit is the LIFO method

New habits always have a short, ham period, and our minds tend to go back to the old habits. Experiments have shown that animals in the laboratory tend to return to their first learning behavior over time as they become accustomed to new behaviors.

This also explains that people's behavior habits are difficult to change. Studies show that people who lose weight almost every year will return to their own weight in 2 years, and that three-and-two alcoholics will pick up their beer bottles and regain their old habits within 1 years after a rehabilitation treatment.

Habits are hard to change, and new habits are hard to build or create. Use the word accounting, the habit is LIFO first.

Guess

If long-term habits are hard to build and create, and new habits are most likely to be discarded, how do product designers have the opportunity to allow some users to use the product in their daily lives? The answer is to start using the product first: reward

In nature, some things are predictable, such as fire is always hot, so our brain is always guiding us to work, so habit is a way, it improves the response time of our brain, let us not think too much. Perhaps you have said such a word "I first touched the fire, hurt me, and never do so again", in fact, every day we do is gradually become a habit, with little consciousness.

When we drive or drive something, we feel fear when something threatens our safety. But when we feel better, the uncertainty of the brain is not felt.

For example, when a baby sees a dog for the first time, the dog is not only very cute, but it also makes the baby curious. Why is this furry monster in our house? Is it going to hurt me? The baby is always filled with questions. If the dog is determined to pose no threat, the baby will laugh.

Until one day, the baby grew up, and it fully understood the behavior of the dog, suddenly, the dog is no longer its plaything, the child turned his attention to bicycles and sweets.

We can conclude from the above example: to maintain the user's attention, the product must be novel. Just like Zynga, where people are addicted to the games they develop, the user's interest is diminished when they have been playing for a long time.

Machine VS Person

But you're like Facebook, why is it that people still like it for a long time? And for what "Warcraft" users play for a while lost interest in it? What's the difference between them?

In fact, this is a finite variable and infinite variable problem. The finite variable is that the product always operates under the same rules, while the wireless variable is always uncertain. This is like machines and people, the machine is fixed, and its thinking is designed in advance, in case of some changes, it will not know how to do, but people are not the same, people can think, even if the problem, he thought may be able to solve.

Like Facebook is constantly innovating and changing. Although Facebook has had a lot of acquisitions this year, it is also designed to make its products more attractive and inject fresh blood into it. Apple, for example, makes an iphone every other year, not just to keep users distracted, but also to innovate to keep attracting users.

There is no guarantee

No enterprise can determine that its products can permanently attract users. Consumption behavior will inevitably be replaced by new behavior. So enterprises want to retain users, do not have to change the user's habit of thinking, or to pursue its fundamental, continuous innovation, grasp the good products.