The product is going to be a worm in the user's belly

The author of this article Nir Eyal

Imagine a scene like this. When you walk into a busy department store, someone comes into your hand and ask for money: "May I have some change for the bus?" What if this man is not a beggar, but a doctor?

As part of a French study, researchers want to know whether they can change how much money people give to a stranger, just through special scrutiny. They found a simple and effective way to get people to double their money.

This change in expression not only increases the amount of money people take on buses to strangers, but also effectively increases the participation of charitable donations and voluntary surveys. In fact, a recent summary analysis of 42 studies involving more than 22,000 participants suggested that the last words to be appended to the request could be recognized and the likelihood of receiving a request increased by one fold.

So what are the magic words that the researchers found? That is, "but you are free to choose to accept or reject."

This technique of making a request suggests that if we are convinced that the choice is free, it is more likely to be persuaded. This effect is not only observed in face-to-face interactions, but also in e-mail communication. Although the study does not directly focus on how products and services use this approach, research provides several operational insights to guide companies in influencing user behavior.

"Want" or "have to"

Dr. Jesse Schell of the Center for Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University has studied the psychology behind People's entertainment. Outside the CEO of his gaming studio, Jesse Schell spent decades poring over why people spend a lot of time playing "Angry Birds" or "World of Warcraft", rather than doing anything else, such as their daily work or tax returns.

At this year's Design innovation Communication Entertainment (D.I.C.E) summit, Jesse Schell described behavior as a "want" versus a "forced" difference. Jesse Schell that the difference between what we want to do and what you have to do is "work and play ... Restraint and freedom ... The difference between efficiency and pleasure. ”

In addition, Jesse Schell believes that autonomy is the key to enjoying an experience. Jesse Schell points out the study of Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, whose "theory of self-determination" confirms the idea that individual autonomy is a key requirement for staying active.

Unfortunately, too many "deliberate" products fail because they make people feel "compelled" and people are obligated to do things rather than what they "want" to do. "There are different channels in the brain that seek positive results and avoid negative outcomes," says Jesse Schell. ”

When faced with "having to", our brains identify them as punishment, so we use shortcuts, cheats, escapes, or, in many apps or Web pages, we uninstall them or click on something else to get away from the uncomfortable feeling we have.

Why does it make sense to have a choice?

So, in the French study of bus fares, why is it useful to remind people that they have the right to be free to choose?

The researchers say the phrase "you are free to choose" relieves our instinctive resistance to what is being asked to do. If you've ever complained about your mother telling you to wear a coat, or when your boss feels your blood pressure is going up when it comes to your "micro-management," You experience what psychologists call a "resistance" mentality, a response to the threat of your autonomy.

However, when a request is accompanied by a confirmation of the right of choice, resistance will not appear. It frees people from the thought that a behavior is "forced" and makes them feel that it is "what I Do".

But can the principles of autonomy and resistance be applied to products that change behavior and create new habits? Here are two examples, but of course you are free to make your own decisions.

Counting calories

Take the example of establishing good nutrition habits. Search for "dieting" in Apple's App Store will show 3,235 apps, all of which promise to help users lose their excess weight. In the first place is MyFitnessPal, whose IOS App has been evaluated by more than 350000 people. A year ago, when I decided to lose some weight, I installed the App and tried it. MyFitnessPal is easy to use. It requires dieters to record what they eat and display a calorie value based on their weight loss goals.

In a few days, I stuck to the plan and typed in the information about every food I ate. I used to record food information on paper and pen, and MyFitnessPal can be a good improvement.

But before I could use MyFitnessPal, I wouldn't track the number of calories, even though the App was first used for novelty, but soon it became a drag. Keeping a diet diary is not part of my daily routine, nor is it something I want to do with my App. I want to lose weight and App tells me how to do it by strictly tracking calories and consumption. Unfortunately, I soon found that I forgot to enter a meal, which made it impossible to go back to the original plan-the rest of the time became a blank for my fitness program.

Soon, I began to feel obligated to admit to my cell phone the "guilt" of my meal. MyFitnessPal became Myfitnesspain. Yes, I initially chose to install the app, but it backfired and my enthusiasm subsided and it became a nuisance to use the app. Accepting a strange new behavior, such as tracking calories in my case, gives the impression of being "forced". My only choice is to either follow what App asks me to do or give up. So, I gave up.

Friends

On the other hand, another health App called fitocracy changes user behavior in different ways. The app's purpose is similar to its competitors: helping people build better diets and exercise habits. But the app affects the familiar "I do" behavior rather than asking people to "have to" do record tracking.

At first, Fitocracy's experience was similar to other health apps, encouraging new members to record food intake and exercise. But the difference in fitocracy is that it realizes that most users will soon revert to a relapse, as I did with MyFitnessPal, unless the APP can dive into existing behavior.

Before I could resist the alarm disappearing, I started accepting compliments from other members after I entered my first run. Because of curiosity to know who sent the virtual encouragement, I landed in. There, I immediately saw a question from a user named "Mrosplock5", a woman seeking advice on what to do about the knee pain caused by running. Because I experienced a similar problem a few years ago, I left a quick response. "Running barefoot (or wearing the lowest heel shoes) eases my knee pain. It's weird, but it's true!

I haven't used fitocracy for a long time, but it's easy to see others like it too. Fitocracy First is an online community. The app was initially attracted to me by trying to imitate the chat between friends in the real World gym. Prior to Fitocracy, the habit of contacting people with similar ideas existed for a long time, and the company exploited this potential behavior to make it easier and more stimulating to encourage and motivate each other by encouraging each other, exchanging ideas and receiving praise. In fact, a recent study in the Netherlands found that social factors are the most important reason people use services and recommend them to others.

Social identity is what we all aspire to, fitocracy use this universal need to lead the user to fitness, provide new tools, features to meet the needs of users to build new habits. The choice of fitocracy users has become a choice between the old ways of doing things and the company's tailor-made solutions.

Conclusion

To be fair, MyFitnessPal does have an intention to retain the social characteristics of the user. However, unlike Fitocracy, its community interaction features are too late or even non-existent.

It is clear that it is too early to say which one will win in many health companies, but the fact remains that most of the user technology companies that have succeeded in changing the day-to-day behavior of millions of people in our time are the companies that nobody asks us to use. Perhaps part of the appeal of watching a few minutes on Facebook or looking at the score on ESPN is to achieve a completely autonomous moment-a relief from being asked by superiors and colleagues.

Unfortunately, too many companies make their products by betting that users will do what they should or must, rather than what they want to do. They fail to change behavior because they ignore the pleasure of making their services themselves, often requiring users to learn new and unfamiliar behaviors rather than simplifying past habits.

Conversely, those products that successfully change behavior show the user a subtle choice between the old ways they do things and the new, more convenient solutions to existing needs. Let the user retain the freedom of choice, the product can promote the acceptance of new habits and permanent changes in behavior.

Long Memo

When our autonomy is threatened, we feel constrained by a lack of choice and often resist new behavior. Psychologists call it "resistance."

To change behavior, the product must ensure that the user feels the power of control. People want to use services, not feel they have to.

Trying to create new behaviors is difficult because these actions often make people feel compelled. For example, unless someone has developed a calorie-counting habit, it's hard to tell a user what to do, and it's not easy to go back to normal records if a user makes a mistake.

However, by making the existing behavior easier to operate, the product can indicate a choice that is more likely to be accepted. By making existing behaviors simpler and more motivating, the product gives users the option to do things the way they do, or to let their habits get better new solutions.

By pandering to existing habits, products are more likely to change user behavior because, over time, they give users more complex behaviors and new habits.