

Ask HN: How can you make a user experience addictive? - Chirag

What factors and techniques contribute to making a user experience addictive?
======
jlesk
I have users that spend nearly all of their free time on my site. One recently
asked me to ban them so they could kick the habit. I asked him what part of
the site was addictive and he said, "Basically everything."

One of the key things, I think, is having lots of little things to do that you
can get immediate feedback from. e.g. Check the forum for new replies, rate
new content, see what kind of response their content is getting, etc.

Kathy Sierra has a great article on this kind of thing:
[http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/0...](http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/05/finegrained_tre.html)

Having strict moderation keeps the general quality high, which means it's
usually worth checking back to see what's new. There are also multiple tracks
of achievement, like hitting 500 comments, etc. so there is always a new badge
within striking distance.

You don't even need to have permanent badges. I have a list on the front page
of the people who have submitted the most ratings that day. You don't get
anything from being on the list, but people try to get to the top anyway.
People like seeing their own names.

Having a friendly community is also a big help, since it means that other
users are a direct source of positive feedback. That's a bit harder to
develop, though.

~~~
lionshare
Is your site a gaming site? because I always thought that this type of
addictive usage is only on games

~~~
sireat
Almost every successful(and even some which are not so successful) forum has a
number of people who are addicted to that particular site.

In fact, I would wager that a number of us here on HN are engaging in highly
addictive behaviour.

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shib71
Any "reward" for interaction will help.

    
    
      - WOW: experience
      - T61: karma for hearting songs you like
      - Every forum ever: titles for number of posts
      - HN: karma for comments / submissions others like
      - StackOverflow: practically everything

~~~
radu_floricica
I'd say validation from others replying to your posts is probably more
important then karma or titles.

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dfield
Last summer, I had the privilege of attending a talk by Mark Pincus at
Startup2Startup. One of the tips he gave that really resonated with me was to
"gamify everything."

For example, if users have to enter information to make your service more
usable, give them a progress bar. In general, let the user "grind" - give them
small, repetitive, mindless actions that are easy to accomplish and give
instant, positive feedback. Above all, make the experience simplistic enough
that they know what to focus on but interesting enough that they don't leave.

Reputation systems that have an effect in a community can also make people
come back. Just look at HackerNews ;)

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lotharbot
\- Set the difficulty level correctly. In an app, it should be ridiculously
easy to do stuff. In a game, the challenge should be scaled appropriately so
the game is neither boring nor frustrating, and so that players continue to
develop and use new skills as the game goes on.

\- data, stats, and awards. People like to see how many posts they've made,
how much karma they've accumulated, how many songs they've listened to, or how
many zombies they've killed. They like to be given titles or trophies for
passing milestones.

\- feedback from friends. Even better than getting that 10,000 zombie trophy
or that new forum rank is getting congratulations from your friends on your
accomplishment.

\- tickle the senses. Pretty graphics or sounds make for a neat experience in
games or certain social apps. (The game "Auditorium", at playauditorium.com,
is fantastic for this!)

\- replayability. The experience should remain fun time after time. In a game,
the challenge should have some variability. In any app, the "rewards" --
karma, titles, pretty graphics, or what have you -- should update often enough
that users are consistently reminded of them. For socially-focused sites, it
should be easy for users to generate good content for each other so that each
visit seems rewarding. (Example: Grandma finds it rewarding to see new
pictures of my baby. Facebook makes it easy for me to upload new pictures, and
easy for her to view them, so she gets new pictures fairly often. Therefore,
Grandma is addicted.)

------
mortenjorck
The single most important factor is one I'd take from gaming, a medium where
addiction is a frequently sought-after element: Playability. Do things flow in
a pleasing way? Do your actions feel like they have weight? Is the environment
responsive? Do you feel like you can explore?

Strive for a "playable" UX and addictiveness will come naturally.

------
ssp
Supposedly, if the rewards are _randomly_ reinforced, they will be more
addictive. Ie., if the same action sometimes creates positive feedback and
sometimes negative, people will keep coming back because they are looking
forward to the positive ones and can't predict when they will happen.

I don't know whether it works in practice though.

~~~
rubinelli
I read an article on Gamasutra a long time ago about this kind of experiment
with mice (sadly, my google-fu was weak.) The researchers compared how much
effort mice would put into pushing a lever N times to get food vs. pushing a
lever that had a 1/N chance of giving food. What they saw was that, if they
had a fixed goal, their "motivation" would follow a seesaw pattern: right
after they got their prize, they would ignore the lever for a while, but when
they were a few pushs from getting food, they would go nuts on it. The random
lever got constant attention at a higher average. The author translated this
to Diablo: the player has leveling up, which is a fixed, visible goal that the
player can strive for, and random equipment drops, that keep him hooked even
when other incentives are one or two hours away. Another game to consider:
Civilization. I know you all experienced the just-one-more-turn, why-are-
birds-chirping-outside effect. It does it by interleaving minor and major
goals in different areas, so you don't have motivation valleys, only peak
after peak.

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ElllisD
I find HN addictive. It's earned a button smack in the center of my bookmark
toolbar.

If I had to quantify why it's because of quality content. Especially with
regard to comments. The headlines change relatively quick.

And come to think of it, +1 for cloudwalking's comment. There's reduced
friction here. eg. minimal visual noise.

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quizbiz
Download Peggle for Mac. You will find your owner, though I am unsure of it's
relevancy. I guess the takeaway is offer instant visual gratification.
Divvyshot does a great job with this in a more subtle manner.

Tell people exactly how to proceed to a next step. At that next step, reward
them beyond what they could have expected.

------
cloudwalking
Reduce friction. Make it as easy as possible to do any given task.

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javanix
The first one's always free?

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alain94040
Game. Check out this talk from Amy Jo Kim at startup2startup:
[http://startup2startup.com/2009/01/09/jan29-amyjokim-
shuffle...](http://startup2startup.com/2009/01/09/jan29-amyjokim-
shufflebrain/)

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ciscoriordan
Accessibility, ease of use, satisfaction, and pleasing aesthetics.

I use Google Calendar instead of iCal because it's integrated with my browser
through Google Toolbar. I can add add an event by highlighting some text and
clicking in the toolbar twice. Bringing up my calendar takes one click.

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qqnoodles
Fresh content (user generated or not), low friction, and growing stakes as the
user becomes more engaged.

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jarmop
Content, fresh content and user-created content.

1) Content needs to be an look interesting for the target audience. 2) Content
needs to be fresh and look fresh. 3) Users need to be able to add and enrich
the content, in natural way.

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kilian
I think points (and badges) are basically the crack cocaine of the 21th
century. Reward every positive action with points and you're halfway there.

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olalonde
StackExchange's karma points and badges have made me quite addictive.

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petervandijck
1) game mechanics

2) Something new every 15 minutes

