From Section 4 Sprint Site: "Why is it that some behaviors become habits while others don’t? And how can you spot these behaviors and begin to turn them into habits? In this first module, you’ll learn how to assess a behavior’s habit-forming potential and begin its habituation through triggers — the first phase of the sprint’s central framework, the Hooked Model."

I. The Habit Zone

From Sprint Site: "Building habit-forming products is a powerful way to increase customer engagement and loyalty while lowering marketing costs. However, becoming a habitual part of your customers’ lives is no easy task, especially if you’re focused on the wrong behavior. In this video, you’ll learn the defining characteristics of habits and how to determine a behavior’s habit-forming potential."

I read the book The Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg a few years ago and it was a game changer for me. I learned about the habit zone and how it's the key to understanding how habits are formed. The habit zone is the space between the cue and the reward. Its the space where the behavior happens, the habit is formed and also where the habit is broken.

Creating habits is hard

The Value of Habits

Habit: impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought What kind of apps do you use habitually?

Financial app, workout app, calm, headspace
- What are the triggers for these apps?
  - Cash App/PayPal: when you get paid, when you get a notification
  - Workout app: Little 5 minute reminders on my running app that tell me how far I've run
  - Calm: Reminders to meditate and they also have streaks
We can create habit forming products that make users lives better

Habits truly govern our life - they make up for over half of all our daily activities. Habits are the reason we brush our teeth, go to work, and eat breakfast. One habit that we all have is our massive addiction to our smart phones. We can't go more thn 15 minutes without checking to make sure we don't miss anything. Consider the massive advantage you get when you create a product that forms a habit - you get a customer for life.

What can habits do for our products?

Habits increase lifetime customer value
Habits drive growth
Huge sustainable competitive advantage
- How many times a day do we search on Google without using or thinking about other alternatives?

Things like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have become almost second nature to us. I have sent so many Tweets with out even realizing what I did, only to be surprised with a bunch of retweets later. That is why these companies are so successful. They have created habits that we can't break.

We have a framework we can use to hack into these habits - the Habit Zone.

The Habit Zone

The Habit Zone is a simple frameworkto determine if a customer behavior has habit forming potential. Here are the the two main parts of steps that make up the Habit Zone:

What behavior do you want your users to do with little or no conscious thought
Plot it and we have The Habit Zone

Frequency: More frequency means more likely that behavior will be a habit
- Things like email, social media, and news are all things we do multiple times a day
Bolt a frequently occurring behavior on an infrequently used product
- Content: People can engage with new information in an infrequent content environment
- Community: Nike Running Club, lululemon Yoga club
  - Hallmark Ornaments: Bolted a community habit around ornaments and they unpack ornaments through out the year.

Ex. - Cookware from Williams Sonoma is something we don't buy all the time. They made their website artistic with cool content, posted multiple times per day to hook people to the content consumption. When it is time to monetize, people will buy the cookware from Williams Sonoma.

Perceived utility

Perceived utility has to have value. It can tell us how useful or rewarding a new behavior could be versus its alternatives.

Discovering Utility

Think of existing problems that don't have a solution yet.
Consder behaviors people aspire to perform
Look for simple behaviors

Possible Measures of Utility

Customer Renewal Rate - This is the number of customers who renew divided by the total number of customers up for renewal and then you extract the percentage out of that to get the renewal rate.
Net Promoter Score - We find this by adding our Net promoter score to the percentage of Promoters and subtracting the percentage of Detractors.
Direct Traffic - This is the number of people who visit your website directly divided by the total number of people who visit your website.
Word of Mouth - This is the number of people who are talking about your product.

Plotting Behaviors

Estimate frequency by lookaing at data on current usage or making an educated guess
Estimate how much utility your product provides vs. alternatives

Is this habit good for business?

Is the behavior specific?
- clear verb-noun combo
- can be measured with one metric
Is behavior strategic?
- Aligns with the goals of the organization
- does improving the metric improve the business?

Takeaways

Technology is not a requirement for a habit forming product
Evaluate the habit-forming potential of several behaviors
Prioritize high frequency behaviors