Practical sharing: What is the hooked addiction model? How to use it to improve user activity and stickiness?

Let me share a new term, the HOOKED addiction model. Many people may not have heard of this term. The HOOKED addiction model is a method in game design. It is well reflected in Honor of Kings and World of Warcraft . It is used to improve user activity and stickiness. This article wants to tell you how the HOOKED addiction model can improve user activity and stickiness in operation .

1. What is the HOOKED addiction model?

There is a book called "HOOKED" in product design. This book introduces the HOOKED addiction model. Simply put, it consists of four steps: trigger-action-reward-investment. The picture below is a minimalist addiction model.

2. How does the addiction model improve user activity and stickiness?

The addiction model is generally used in game design, for example, it is well reflected in Honor of Kings and World of Warcraft. Why can HOOKED increase activity? This model tells us a simple truth: stimulate user behavior through rewards and build user stickiness through user behavior .

In the refined operation thinking , this model is also applicable to the application of products in various industries, but the application method in each link is different. The following uses the most common means of increasing activity: activation activities as an example to illustrate how to apply the HOOKED model in daily activities.

1. Trigger users: Get users’ attention through the demand triangle

Triggering is the first and most difficult step of the HOOKED model, which is equivalent to arousing the user's interest.

So how do you arouse users’ interest? Here we introduce another model: the "demand triangle model".

The demand triangle model includes three parts: sense of lack, compensatory power and target object. Simply put, it is to find and provide solutions to users' pain points.

For example, when a new iPhone is launched, users may have already used their current phone for three years, which creates a sense of lack. The user wants to buy a new iPhone, but what is the pain point? The pain point is poverty and having no money.

How to solve the pain points once they are found? Wouldn’t it be possible to solve the problem by owning an iPhone without spending any money? But how? The prize for my event was a new iPhone, which successfully attracted the user's attention and motivated him to participate in the event.

In addition to material rewards, there are also spiritual rewards, such as user levels or badge systems that are very common in products, which represent privileges and honors. For example, in the Zhihu system, there are professional authors, active authors and ordinary authors. So, if you are also answering questions in Zhihu, do you want to become a professional author? If you are given a way to become a professional author, it will motivate users to participate.

When it comes to triggering users and attracting new users, the problem to be solved is how to let users know the news. When it comes to increasing activity, the problem to be solved is how to arouse users' sense of participation and give users a goal to participate in the event.

2. Action: Reduce the cost of action paid by users

If the prize for an event is a new iPhone, but users are required to post 10 messages every day for three consecutive years, will they still participate? There will definitely be people participating, but their enthusiasm will be much lower, because posting 10 messages every day for three consecutive years is too costly for users.

If you want to get users to participate in activities and increase their activity, you can refer to another theory in this stage of user action, which is the "User Story Map" in agile working method. User story maps sort out the user's usage paths, delete unnecessary behaviors, and retain only the most effective actions to reach the goal, thereby reducing the user's action costs.

The goal that users need to achieve in order to receive rewards should be consistent with the goal you want to improve. For example, if your goal is to increase activity, then what does it mean to increase activity?

This is related to the definition of activity you set. If the definition of activity is that users browse 3 articles a day, then you can get rewards by asking users to browse 3 articles a day. If you want users to shop or leave messages, you need to set other rewards. Each goal has only one main line of action, which is the key to designing the action link.

But wouldn’t it be a big loss if users could get an iPhone by browsing three articles? I just like your argumentative spirit, read on.

3. Rewards: Give users timely rewards

Each goal has only one main line of action, and users will be given corresponding rewards for completing each step. The design of the prize needs to match the cost of the user's action. If an iPhone is the ultimate goal, then the user needs to complete multiple tasks to get the iPhone, but a reward needs to be given for completing each task.

It is still the unreasonable assumption that users can get an iPhone if they log in every day for three consecutive years. So they can get points by logging in every day, and the points earned by logging in every day for three consecutive years are just enough to exchange for an iPhone.

For example, if you want to become a professional author on Zhihu, you need to contribute 100 articles with more than 100 likes (hypothetical, don’t take it seriously). This goal is far away for users, so we need to set up reward levels. Contribute 100 articles with more than 100 likes. The first action for users is to contribute 1 article, regardless of the number of likes. Therefore, users should be rewarded when they publish content for the first time.

Then, next, users will also need to be rewarded for publishing 10 articles, publishing 20 articles, or getting 10 likes, etc. The rewards given for each effort will guide users to take the next step. In many games, it is very easy to upgrade at the beginning, but it becomes very difficult to upgrade after reaching a certain level. This is because the tier rewards are not well designed, and when upgrading is difficult, there is no clear upgrade method provided to users, or the method provided does not give timely rewards.

The nitpicker is here again: According to what you said, if we give rewards for every action, but don’t give the big prize, what if users are not interested in the small prizes? Won’t it still be lost? So, look down.

4. Investment: Generate user stickiness through user input

The concept of investment is not how much the operator has invested, but how much the users have invested through the repeated cycles of the above three steps, creating stickiness through the users' efforts. For example, a Zhihu author answered 50 questions and received 500 likes, but still could not become a professional author. It is too difficult to become a professional author, so will users leave?

Definitely, but there will also be some users who will stay on the platform because of the content they have produced on Zhihu and the fans and approval they have gained. In economics, there is a term called sunk cost, which refers to the cost incurred in the past but has nothing to do with current decisions. For example, in a previous activity, 10,000 leaflets were printed, but only 3,000 were distributed, and the rest were useless, so it is considered a sunk cost.

The same applies to users. I answered 50 questions and trained my character to level 50. Although I did not achieve the ultimate goal, when I want to give up, I will also consider my previous efforts. Whether investment can reduce churn depends on what users get for their investment. If I answer 50 questions on Zhihu and don’t get a single like or a single fan, then these 50 questions are meaningless to me. But if I have 300 fans, then this is meaningful.

If it is a shopping product, users improve their levels and the privileges behind the levels and obtain many coupons by participating in activities again and again. It is unlikely that they will completely leave this platform now unless there is no demand at all.

Summary: The HOOKED addiction model can be applied to the design of daily activities. It can guide user participation through activity rewards, reduce user payment behavior, give corresponding rewards for each payment, and ultimately increase stickiness through user payment. Rewards can be physical objects, virtual honors, or social relationships.

Source: Zhuge io Data Coach