"1. Frequency Is Key"

"Eyal cites research showing that habits are most likely to take hold when a behavior occurs frequently."

"2. Form Associations"

"Habit-forming products attach themselves to, what Eyal calls, ""internal triggers."" These cues are the emotions, situations, or existing routines that prompt users to action."

"""The most frequent internal triggers are negative emotions,"" Eyal says. ""We often turn to the products we use to satiate discomfort."""

"3. Use Good Triggers"

"Over time, users adopt new habits and come back to a product on their own. But to create these automatic behaviors in the first place, products need to utilize ""external triggers."""

"4. Make the Habit Simple"

"Eyal cites the work of Stanford researcher BJ Fogg, who identified six key factors that make a behavior more or less likely to occur by increasing or decreasing its difficulty. Time, money, physical effort, brain cycles (how difficult something is to understand), social deviance, and non-routine (how unfamiliar the behavior is) make a habitual behavior less likely."

"5. Use Variable Rewards"

"""Variable rewards give users what they came for, yet leave them wanting more,"""

"""The spin of the roulette wheel, the uncertain ending of a good book, or the edge-of-your seat anticipation involved with watching an exciting sporting event are all examples of variable rewards,"""

"6. Get Users to Invest"

"Eyal says asking the user to invest in the product increases the likelihood of the user returning."

"""When users accrue data, content, followers, reputation, or skill by using the product, they store value in it. In turn it becomes better with use and they are more likely to use the product again in the future."""