Technique · Hooked
Habit Zone plot and one-page Hook canvas
List the few behaviors that could become a habit, estimate how often each naturally happens and how much better it is than the alternative, and pick one. Then fill a one-page canvas for it; a blank field means the idea needs work before anyone builds it.
Plain label: frequency and usefulness mapAlso known as: Habit Zone, Hook canvas, habit candidate, target behavior, idea filter
How it works
Behaviors turn automatic when they repeat often and feel more useful than the alternatives. The book draws a downward-sloping threshold with no numeric scale: frequency can make up for modest usefulness, while a behavior that is too rare stays a deliberate choice. Choosing one target behavior early keeps the team from designing loops around the wrong action.
Evidence warning
There is no universal scale; teams set their own threshold per behavior. Treat placement as a judgment backed by evidence, not a measurement.
What the research says
Repetition in a stable context builds automaticity; in one study the median time to a personal plateau was about 66 days (range 18-254).
Lally et al., European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010
How to build it
- Web
- Workshop: write three to five candidate behaviors, rate each one's natural cadence and its edge over today's alternative, and circle the one most likely to cross the threshold.
- B2B
- Rate the behavior per role: the admin's weekly review and the end user's daily task can sit on opposite sides of the threshold.
- Mobile
- Shape the core unit of content or work to the chosen cadence (one lesson a day, one review a week) and attach a prompt to each unit.
What can go wrong
- Picking the behavior the business wants rather than one users already repeat.
- Treating the threshold as a number; the book gives none.
- Rating usefulness from founder belief instead of user evidence.
Pairs well with
- Use the itch finder to fill the internal-trigger field of the canvas.
- Hand the chosen behavior to Habit Testing once there is usage data.
In practice
Where it shows up
Google · 2014
Google Search: a habit rivals couldn't break
Qualitative, from the books: Hooked (Ch1) on search habit and switching costs, and Ch3 on the radically simple 1998 homepage; Actionable Gamification (Ch6) on making users feel smart, versus Google+. Consumer Google+ was shut down in 2019 (widely reported; not re-verified). No outcome number.
M4 ×StartReturnCase grade for the number: D. Evidence grade for the mechanism link: D.Anecdote
Limits
What we don’t claim
- The Hook Model is a practical design tool, not a validated or complete theory of behavior.Hooked, Introduction
- This is a practitioner heuristic (grade D): test it in your own product before relying on it.
- The threshold is a heuristic, not a measured cut-off.
Sources
Hooked · Nir Eyal
Ch.1 · Ch.8 · Ch.7
Source IDs: HK-T02HK-STR02HK-T15HK-STR13HK-STR21
Book content is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Last verified October 24, 2026.
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