Darren Austin Interview - Nir & Far

Hi, I'm Nir Eyal and this is the near and Far Podcast. This podcast is about business, behavior and the brain. On this show, I do a few things. I read quick articles I've written about topics shaping your behavior. I interview authors of books I enjoy, and from time to time I devote episodes to answering your questions. If you want to ask me a question, visit the podcast page on itunes, go to Ratings and Reviews, and ask me a question. By leaving a review, I promise to read it and possibly include your question in a future episode. So please ask me anything now. Enjoy the episode and for more, you can always Visit me@nearandfar.com.

Alexa what makes you so Habit forming? By Darren Austin.

Last year we added a new member to our household. I have to admit that upon first meeting her, our initial impression was that she was a little creepy. Today, though, we can't imagine life without her. We've never seen her face, but we talk to her throughout the day, every day. She helps us keep track of our to dos and shopping list, she reads us the news and weather, and she can sing nearly any song we'd like to hear. In fact, we've become so accustomed to our presence that we invited her to join us in nearly every room in the house. She listens to us when we say goodnight and is there first thing in the morning to wake us up. Her name is Alexa and she's the voice of the Amazon Echo. If our experience is any indicator, there's a good chance that Alexa or a technology like her will soon be a presence in most households. So how did Alexa become such an integral part of our lives? And how did the technology profoundly change our daily habits? It turns out that Alexa shares a common trait with other habit forming technologies like Facebook, Slack, and the iPhone. The Amazon Echo has a great hook hooks According to Nir Eal, the author of how to Build Habit Forming products are experiences designed to connect the user's problem with the company's product with enough frequency to form a habit. In his best selling book, Eyal describes the four steps of the hook model and provides case studies for how the stickiest technologies use hooks to help keep users coming back. In this essay, I'll use the Hooked model to help explain how voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa keep us hooked. Let's start with the trigger. Every hook starts with a trigger. Triggers prompt us to action and tell us what to do next. In the case of Facebook or your iPhone, a trigger might be a notification or a status update. These types of triggers are called external triggers, Eyal says, since the information for what action to take next is contained within the trigger itself. However, external triggers alone are not enough to build a habit forming product. To get people to use a device without prompting, users must trigger themselves. Internal triggers, according to Eyal, involve making mental associations with the product. The most common internal trigger, he says, are negative emotions. For example, when we use Facebook when we're lonely or spending time to watch YouTube videos when we're bored, these products become our go to relief from negative feelings. In the case of Alexa, my wife and I have associated the internal trigger of uncertainty with the satisfying relief the Echo provides, for example Alexa what's the weather like today? Or Alexa what's happening in the news?

Interestingly, the more we got in the habit of asking Alexa to relieve the itch of uncertainty, the more we began to associate the device with other internal triggers. For example, we hate the feeling we might forget to put something we need on our shopping list. The fear of forgetting is an internal trigger prompting us to tell Alexa to add an item to our list whenever we run out of something around the house.

Lets talk about action. The next step of the Hooked model is the action phase. Actions are the simplest behavior done in anticipation of a relief, Eyal says. With the simple action of just asking, Alexa relieves the negative emotions of uncertainty and the fear of forgetting. According to Eyal, the simpler you can make the action, the more likely it is to occur. This insight is a key secret of the success of the voice interfaces like Alexa. For certain tasks, speaking a command is dramatically easier than tapping a screen. For example, consider the number of steps required to add an item to our family's to do list through an iPhone versus doing this through the Echo on the to do app. On the iPhone, there are eight steps. First, locate the phone and this could involve many more steps depending on how forgetful you are that day. Second step is unlock the phone. Third, locate and open the to do app. Fourth, navigate to the appropriate to do list, of which I have many. Fifth tap add a To do. Sixth type the name of a task. Seventh tap done and then save the to do and then eight Put the phone away. Contrast that with a number of steps it would take using Alexa only three steps. The first one Be anywhere near an Alexa enabled device and in our home, that's just about everywhere except for the front yard. Second step Literally speak the words Alexa Add blank to our to do list. Third, relish the feeling that you are living in the future when you consider the frequency with which we edit our to do in the shopping lists and the ease of this action. You can imagine how quickly a new habit might form around this behavior. In fact, an April 2017 study from GfK showed nearly half of Amazon Echo and Google Home users report using their devices or regularly or all the time. In addition to helping form a habit, regular use increases the chance of making a purchase on Amazon. A 2016 Experian study found that 45.3% of Echo users reported having used the device at least once to add an item to their shopping list, while 32.1% reported completing a transaction through the device.

Now we'll talk about reward the next step of the hook model is the reward phase. It's here, Eyal says, that users get what they came for relief from the psychological itch of the internal trigger. When Alexa confirms that Tabasco sauce was added to my shopping list, I can rest assured that my favorite condiment will soon be on its way and I do not have to worry about remembering to write it down later. But the voice interface built into products like Amazon Echo utilize another psychological Apple to keep me coming back. In his book, Eyal describes the power of variable rewards. Originally, this was a study done by B.F. skinner, and it's a phenomenon that explains why slot machines are so engaging and why we love scrolling through our Facebook news feeds. We love surprises, and the hunt for something rewarding and different keeps us engaged. Alexa is full of surprises. For one, the device is a tool for delivering content which is itself variable, like the news, games or audiobooks. But Alexa also has a personality of her own. Her occasional clever responses keep us wanting to hear what she'll say next. For example, telling Alexa the famous line from Star Wars, I am your father yields the robotic voice reply, no, that's not true. That's impossible. This is followed by much nerd celebration and lightsaber raveling. Counterintuitively, the fact that Alexa isn't always able to reply correctly is, in a way a form of variable reward. Sometimes I find myself asking Alexa things just to hear what she'll say. So Alexa messing up from time to time is kind of part of the fun. Over the course of time, the mess ups become predictable and no longer variable and therefore no longer fun. Amazon will have to continually improve Alexa in order to keep users engaged, and I expect that they will.

The Investment Phase finally, the hook is complete. According to Eyal, when the user puts something into the product to improve it or with use in the case of products like Facebook or YouTube, an investment might be things you like, watch or comment on Investments can be passively collected, as in the case of usage data, or investments can be something you actively did to improve the service, such as upload a piece of content or customize the experience somehow. In the case of the Amazon Echo, the service gets better when you enter data such as your home address. Knowing your home address enables Alexa to provide more accurate weather forecast or request an Uber to pick you up at your house location. Data also enables Alexa to customize restaurant recommendations for you and tell you about local events. Enabling New Skills Alexa's version of apps is also a form of investment. As of June 2017, developers have created over 12,000 skills for Alexa. Each new skill makes the device better. Alexa is also collecting investment from each user in a more passive form, according to the company. Alex the more you talk to Alexa, the more it adapts to your speech patterns, vocabulary and personal preferences. End quote Alexa gets smarter with use and will soon be able to differentiate who's talking and cater replies to each individual user need. Through hundreds of interactions and tiny user investments like this, Alexa begins to customize itself to each individual's preferences. In the future, the device could learn you like to listen to your local news update in the morning while making breakfast, and could ask you if you'd like to place an order for a refill of Nespresso pods after a certain number of days since your last Amazon order. It could also proactively load the next external trigger by asking if you'd like to know the day's sports scores when it hears you come home from work. So putting all of this together, the Alexa hook goes something like this. I have an internal trigger of uncertainty causes me to take an action which is issuing a voice command that results in a reward which would be interesting content like news or audiobooks or something clever that Alexa says. And finally, an investment which is me enabling a new skill or Alexa collecting information on how to personalize my experience.

Of course, what makes Alexa so habit forming isn't exclusive to the Amazon Echo. In fact, the potential to change our daily routines through a voice interface clearly has massive potential, which explains why Microsoft, Apple, and Google are all racing to catch up. It's not often that a new technology can change so quickly our daily habits, but I'm confident we're seeing just the beginning of what this new interface can do. Thanks.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the near and Far podcast. You can always find more at my blog, near and Far. And don't forget, if you have a question you'd like me to explore in a future episode. Leave me your question. The former review for the podcast on itunes.