Читать книгу Engaged - Amy Bucher - Страница 42

The ability to make meaningful choices is one of the most important motivational factors people can have—it supports the basic psychological need of autonomy. Meaningful choices start from the most important goals, like choosing to try to change behavior in the first place, and trickle down to supporting goals, like how to go about making change happen. As a general rule, people are more likely to stick with choices they’ve made themselves than with ones that have been imposed on them, especially when something is challenging.

The reason why? If someone’s working toward a behavior change goal and they hit an obstacle, they’ll need a good reason to stick it out. A personally meaningful reason for the goal will provide that. “My weight loss app told me I have to do this” will not fortify people to overcome tough temptations.

You can get people started on behavior change by imposing a goal on them. It happens all the time. How many people embark on a diet or an exercise regimen as a New Year’s resolution because that’s what they’re supposed to do? But if you want people to stick with the change, they eventually have to find their own reasons to do so.

Letting people make their own choices about what goals to tackle is a first step in long-lasting behavior change. In the example from Pacifica, a stress reduction app in Figure 3.1, new users are asked to articulate what they hope to achieve from using the program. EasyQuit, an app for smoking cessation, keeps it even simpler and invites users to generate their own list of motivations for quitting cigarettes (see Figure 3.2). You may not need anything more complicated than these types of question to get your users thinking about what their goals are.

FIGURE 3.1 Pacifica’s users are asked to describe their goal for using the program as part of the onboarding process.

FIGURE 3.2 EasyQuit asks users to generate their own list of motivations for behavior change, and then it offers the option of having those reasons randomly sent as reminders.

Not all choices are meaningful. While users may appreciate being able to choose the color of their program dashboard or the avatar they use, these sorts of aesthetic options don’t typically tap into any deeper meaning. In terms of behavior change, they are at best a “nice to have.” The example from Medisafe in Figure 3.3 is not a compelling reason for a user to pay for an upgraded experience. A more meaningful one would be for users to choose how to communicate medication behaviors to care providers.

The choice that new Happify users are given to have their account in Private Mode or Community Mode is meaningful (see Figure 3.4). Some people feel behavior change is personal and prefer not to share their activities beyond their inner circle, while others thrive on social support. Letting users express their preference at the very beginning of their experience with Happify signals that their autonomy will be supported as they use the product.

FIGURE 3.3 Medisafe’s value proposition for users to upgrade is to be able to personalize the appearance of the app.

FIGURE 3.4 Happify has new users select whether they’d like their activity to be viewable by other users for support and encouragement, or if they want it to remain private.