We like to get inspired by impactful books. Learn how the hooked framework helped us making critical decisions for creating our mobile app.
At Rodi we like to get inspired by impactful books. In this blogpost we will explain how the book “Hooked” from Nir Eyal helped us make certain decisions and what lessons were learned.
Hooked is a book that teaches you what it takes to create a habit forming product.
Nir Eyal defines a habit as behaviour that you perform without having to think why you’re doing it.The behaviour we wanted to become second nature for our users is the following:
“For every bike ride a user does, he should mount his phone on his bars and use Rodi.”
The implies that Rodi should provide value for all types of rides and not only when the user is lost or doesn't know the way. There should be no reason to not use Rodi.
Hooked is a framework that consists of 4 steps, these help with creating this habit: Trigger, Action, Investment, Variable reward.
An internal trigger activates users what to do next through associations stored in the user's memory. These are influenced by the users emotions.
the need to get fitter
the need to live a more sustainable life
the need of showing (bike) performances to friends
the need to explore an area
Paid triggers
Facebook/Instagram/ google/ ... ads
Earned triggers
Featured on LinkedIn posts
Featured in (local) news
Relationship triggers
Seeing Rodi in the description of a friend's Strava activity. (every time somebody uploads a ride on Strava using Rodi, a Rodi reference will be in the description of the activity. Example)
Push notifications
→ Send push notifications based on the intent/ internal trigger of the user (get fitter /sustainability/ performance/ discovery)
→ Send push notifications based on calendar events ( example of Waze)
An action is the behaviour that need to be performed in order to earn a reward. The likeliness of the action be performed depends on the motivation, ability and trigger.
It’s our job to decrease the amount of hindrances the would decrease the ability of the user.
Not being able to mount your phone to your bike.
1. Show the value of the app in an onboarding so the user is convinced to buy a phone mount.
2. Partner up with a company that solves this solution and sell the product from within the app.
Battery life
1. We are constantly working towards a more optimised version of the app.
2. By using a dark background, the display won’t use as much battery.
3. Partner up with a company that sells a solution that enables a phone to be charged while cycling.
4. Pivot Rodi marketing towards shorter ride types (commuting, starting cyclists, ...)
After completing a ride, the route can be uploaded to Strava. This is a widely used platform where you can analyse and share your bike rides. People can give each other "kudos" to support each other. The amount of kudos you will get varies a lot.
Strava also cleverly uses historical graphs to show your activity to friends, if you don't upload activities to Strava, these graphs won't look as impressive.
When a user doesn't know a route to a location, he can use Rodi. The reward is the fact that het got where he needed to be using a bike friendly route.
Rodi should allow the user to set different goals (eg, x amount of rides, x amount of kilometers) for a certain time span.
Showing the total travelled distance with Rodi on the home screen.
Hooked explains that if you invest a small amount of resources( energy, time, financial, ...) into something. You will value this higher.
Ikea for example also benefits from this. Because went through blood, sweat and tears to assemble your new night stand, you’ll be more likely to overvalue this piece of furniture.
The user will most likely have to invest in a phone mount for his bike. There are many ways to mount your phone on your bike. Depending on the financial status of the rider and the type of bike he has, different options might suit him best.
A user has to invest time in setting up Rodi on his bike and actually using the app during his bike ride.
In the case that a user want's to do a planned tour with his bike, he has to take the time to actually plan the route with one of the tools described in this post.
