Influence of consumer motivations and behaviors on product usage

Anuradha SridharanIndependent Products Consultant

Product CampSep 2014

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aryaziai/9018429130/ (Creative Commons Attribution License)

How many of you eat healthy meals everyday?

Image Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aryaziai/9018429130/ (Creative Commons Attribution License)

How many of you “like to eat” healthy meals everyday?

How many of you check Facebook everyday?

“Can a health & wellness app have as high an engagement as a social product?

What goes behind creating high engagement products?”

My quest begins!

ProductUseful

DesignUsable

MarketingReach

Basic understanding of

“Why we do what we do”

Human Traits

Behavioral Psychology

Persuasive Design

Emotional Design

CaptologyDesign

Thinking

User-centric Design

Behavioral Economics

Various Disciplines and Research

Understanding customer’s pain-points

Key responsibility of a product manager

motivations

Core Motivators

Source: http://www.behaviormodel.org/

We seek• Pleasure• Hope• Social

Acceptance

We avoid• Pain• Fear• Social

Rejection

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

Adapted from Dave McClure’s startup metrics for pirates - http://www.slideshare.net/dmc500hats/startup-metrics-for-pirates-long-version

Customer Lifecycle

the higher the usage, the higher the scope of Word-of-Mouth,the higher the chances of upgrades/repeat purchases

AcquisitionGetting people to your sacred page

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

Endowment effect - "people ascribe more value to things merely because they own them”

Loss aversion - "people are more motivated by the prospect of losing something than they are by the prospect of a reward”

Choice supportive bias – “people tend to over attribute positive features to options they chose and negative features to options not chosen”

Competitive, mature markets

Position yourself as the “first” (leader) in a niche category

What’s “new” about your product/service? Call out to users in the higher end of “novelty-seeking” spectrum

Social Proof (also called Bandwagon effect/Group Think/Herd Behavior)

Grouping (label your group of customers)

Stop creating friction. Remove barriers to entry

ActivationSignup, check it out

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

Cost-Benefit Analysis “perceived difficulty of a task in relation to the perceived reward”

We can perform this analysis in a few milliseconds

“Mentally taxing” tasks Too many decision variables (e-commerce) Form Fatigue Asking personal information Memory Retrieval

The scary world of app permissions!!

Seriously puts off a potential user, who had the required motivation to locate your app and click “Install”

System 1 and 2 thinking

System 1 – fast, automatic, unconscious, natural drives and instincts, general rules and heuristics

System 2 – slow, deliberate, conscious, analysis, “inherently lazy”

“the more the mental effort, the higher the reluctance to invest”

- Pupil dilates- Heartbeat increases

Image Source: http://assets1.bigthink.com/system/idea_thumbnails/54524/headline/BigThink_System_1_2.jpg?1394211473

Parameters of usability testing in the future?

RetentionPerform a certain behavior repeatedly

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

HealthifyMe case studyHealth and Wellness App (currently available for Android)

Helps you to track your lifestyle and make positive changes in your eating habits and physical activity

Calorie Tracker for Indian foodsTrack your meals and exerciseGet analysis and actionable insights on your calorie intakeGet personalized advice from coaches

High initial interest, but not sustaining

ReactionsTedious

Boring

Time consuming

I’m busy

I’m traveling I’ll log starting next

Monday

I forget what I eat

I don’t care about

calories

Your app is lying. My food habits

are not that bad

Facilitate behavior change

Constraint for any health & wellness appRequires consistent usage for atleast 2 weeks to notice tangible results

Problem StatementWhat is the ONE specific behavior that we want our users to do in our product/app?

“Track their meals and physical activity everyday”

BJ Fogg’s behavior model

Full credit: BJ Fogg, Copyright: www.behaviormodel.org

Triggers – Day 2 email sampleSocial Proof

Grouping

Increase Ability (Make it easy to track foods)

Quick access to your recent and frequently entered foods. Use the previously entered serving sizes as default

Voice tracking / Photo tracking

Increase motivation (using a layer of gamification)

ReferralSpread positive WOM

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

Reciprocity principle

“If you give something of value to your customers, they feel obligated to reciprocate / return the favor”- Robert Cialdini in his book “Influence”

Demonstrate value first, then expect a favor

Not the other way around!

RevenueJourney from “Users” to “Customers”

Acquisition Activation Retention Referral Revenue

A lot of choices is attractive!

Default view of available flights, if there weren’t any direct flights – 1 stop

Perception:“limited options, site’s not reliable!”

Learning:Show all choices, even if most of them don’t make sense. Provide the customer with the necessary controls(filters) to narrow down further.

Choice paralysis

Hick’s law - “the more options one is exposed to, the longer it takes to make a decision”

http://sheenaiyengar.com/the-art-of-choosing/excerpt/

Displayed: 24 jamsTried the jam: 60%Purchased the jam: 3%

Displayed: 6 jamsTried the jam: 40%Purchased the jam: 30%

Jam Tasting Experiment

The speed breaker of online shopping

Scarcity effect => Information Overload => Decision paralysis => Close the tab and grab a piece of chocolate!

For further reading

Influence: The psychology of persuasion by Robert CialdiniThinking fast and slow by Daniel KahnemanHooked: How to build habit forming products by Nir EyalBlink: The power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm GladwellEmotional Design by Don Norman

http://www.behaviormodel.org/ by BJ Fogghttp://thenextweb.com/apps/2014/05/14/can-online-apps-change-real-life-behavior/ http://www.nirandfar.com/2012/03/how-to-design-behavior.html https://www.helpscout.net/consumer-behavior/ http://3.7designs.co/blog/2012/08/10-psychological-principles-to-design-with/

Thank you!

Want to continue the conversation? Say hello!Twitter - @anura

Email – anuradha.sridharan@gmail.comBlog – http://anusridhar.blogspot.in