How to Use Incomplete Tasks to Nudge Users Towards the Aha! Moment
Have you ever wondered how understanding human psychology could reform your product’s success?
Getting people interested in your product is very important. Understanding how people behave is also essential and can significantly impact your product.
In this article, we will explore the key concepts of product adoption and user onboarding, and show you how you can use the Zeigarnik effect to create and deliver the Aha! moment to your users.
The Zeigarnik effect is a powerful psychological technique that can help you create a sense of curiosity, suspense, and urgency in the user, and nudge them to complete a task or achieve a goal — let’s get started!
Product Adoption: Why It Matters and How to Achieve It
At the core of every successful product lies its adoption rate. It’s not just about attracting users; it’s about keeping them hooked. Users integrate your product seamlessly into their lives, going beyond mere usage.
Each stage of adoption presents unique challenges, from awareness to advocacy. This is where effective user onboarding plays a pivotal role, guiding users through hurdles and facilitating product adoption.
Your product’s success crucially relies on measuring this metric, as it reflects how well your product solves the user’s problem, meets their expectations, and delivers value. Product adoption can also influence user retention, loyalty, and advocacy, which are essential for growing your business.
Product adoption requires time and effort, it doesn’t happen overnight. It requires a well-designed and executed onboarding process that guides the user from the first interaction to the desired outcome.
Onboarding is the first impression that your product makes on the user, and it can determine whether they will stick around or churn. Therefore, onboarding should not only teach the user how to use your product, but also why they should use it, and what benefits they can expect from it.
To achieve product adoption, you must understand the different stages users go through and tailor your onboarding accordingly. The stages of product adoption are awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption, and advocacy.
The user faces different challenges and obstacles that prevent them from moving to the next stage. For example, at the awareness stage, the user may not know about your product or its value proposition, while at the evaluation stage, the user may compare your product with other alternatives and find it lacking. To overcome these challenges and achieve product adoption, you need to design and execute a well-crafted user onboarding process.
The user forms their first impression of your product during onboarding, and it can determine whether they will stick around or churn. Your onboarding process should teach users how to use your product, why they should use it, and what benefits they can expect from it.
The onboarding process is best designed to match the user’s needs and preferences, and to provide them with the right information, motivation, and feedback at the right time and place.
You should not confuse user onboarding with user training or user education. Your onboarding process should focus on both user training and education to provide the user with a clear and compelling value proposition, and a sense of progress and achievement.
However, you should avoid some common pitfalls, such as overwhelming the user with too much information or neglecting the user’s feedback and questions.
At each stage of product adoption, you must provide users with the right information, motivation, and feedback to move them to the next stage. One psychological technique that can help you do this is the “Zeigarnik Effect”
The Zeigarnik Effect: What It Is and How It Works
An intriguing psychological phenomenon that captivates our attention with unfinished tasks or interrupted tasks. Originating from the Russian psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik’s observations.
Bluma had noted how waiters in a cafe seemed to remember incomplete tabs more efficiently than those that had been paid for and were complete. This appeared to suggest that the mere completion of a task can lead to it being forgotten, whilst incomplete tasks, such as serving guests a table who had not yet finished their meal, helped to ensure the waiter remembered their order.
This effect illustrates that we tend to remember incomplete tasks better than completed ones. It’s the itch we can’t resist scratching, the curiosity that keeps us hooked.
The Zeigarnik effect works by creating a state of cognitive dissonance in the user, which is the mental discomfort or tension that arises when there is a gap between what the user knows and what the user wants to know. This gap creates a sense of incompleteness or uncertainty, which the user wants to resolve by completing the task or achieving the goal. Several factors can enhance the Zeigarnik effect, such as:
- Novelty: The task or goal should be new or interesting to the user, and should offer some value or benefit.
- Challenge: The task or goal should be challenging but achievable, requiring some effort or skill from the user.
- Feedback: The user should receive some feedback or reward for completing the task or achieving the goal and be able to track their progress or status.
- Social proof: The user should see some evidence or testimonials of other users who have completed the task or achieved the goal, and should feel motivated or inspired by them.
Some examples of using the Zeigarnik effect in products are:
- Showing a progress bar or a checklist of steps to indicate how close the user is to completing a task or a goal.
Progress bars or checklists offer a dynamic representation of advancement, allowing users to gauge their progress at a glance. Users can see their progress with each step forward, triggering a sense of satisfaction and motivating them to continue until they finish the task. The visual representation of the bar moving closer to completion encourages users to stay engaged.
2. Leveraging micro-interactions to create a sense of intrigue and curiosity
Consider a messaging app that uses micro-interactions to indicate when a new message has arrived. Instead of simply displaying a notification badge, the app could employ a playful animation or sound effect that entices users to open the message and discover its contents. This element of surprise captures users’ attention and fosters a sense of anticipation and engagement.
3. Unobtrusive reminders about certain tasks
They may include subtle notifications, ambient alerts, or contextual prompts that appear at opportune moments during the user’s interaction with a digital product or service. Unlike intrusive pop-ups or alarms, unobtrusive reminders blend seamlessly into the user experience, ensuring that they remain helpful rather than intrusive.
4. Leveraging gamification to introduce challenges, quests, or achievements
One key aspect of leveraging gamification is introducing challenges, which are tasks or activities that users must complete within a specified time frame or under certain conditions. Challenges add an element of excitement and competition, motivating users to push themselves and strive for improvement. For example, Duolingo challenges users to complete a certain number of quests within a set time limit, encouraging them to stay active and committed to their learning goals.
The Zeigarnik effect, a powerful psychological technique, can help you create a sense of curiosity, suspense, and motivation in users, and nudge you to complete a task or achieve a goal.
However, you should use the Zeigarnik effect with caution, and avoid overusing or misusing it, as it can also cause frustration, confusion, or annoyance in the user. The key is to balance the challenge and the reward and to provide clear and consistent feedback to the user.
The Aha! Moment: What It Is and Why It Is Important
Picture that moment of clarity when users realize the true value of your product — the Aha! Moment. It’s the spark that ignites engagement and fosters long-term loyalty. Identifying and nurturing this moment is crucial for driving product adoption and user retention. From personalized recommendations to seamless integrations, every interaction should aim to evoke this powerful response.
To identify the Aha! moment for your product, you need to gather the right data, develop a hypothesis, analyze the data to validate your hypothesis, and stress-test your findings.
You can use some indicators and metrics to track the user’s progress and status and to identify the bottlenecks or drop-offs in the user journey. Some examples of indicators and metrics are:
- Time-to-value: The time it takes for the user to realize the value and benefit of your product.
- Activation rate: The percentage of users who complete the onboarding process and start using your product.
- Retention rate: The percentage of users who continue to use your product after a certain period.
- Engagement rate: The frequency and duration of the user’s interaction with your product.
- Referral rate: The percentage of users who recommend your product to others.
So there’s an Aha! moment and a Wow! moment.
The Aha! moment is different from the Wow! moment. The Wow! moment is the moment when the user experiences something new or unexpected about your product and feels delighted or amazed by it. The Wow! moment is more short-lived and superficial compared to the Aha! moment, and does not necessarily lead to product adoption or user retention.
Some examples of the Aha! moment in popular products are:
- Grammarly: When the user sees the number of errors and suggestions that Grammarly provides, and realizes the improvement in their writing quality.
- Slack: When the user sees the benefits of real-time communication and collaboration and realizes the increase in their productivity and efficiency.
- Canva: When the user sees the variety and quality of the design templates and tools that Canva provides and realizes the ease and speed of their design process.
- Dropbox: When the user sees the convenience and security of cloud storage and file sharing and realizes the reduction in their storage and transfer costs.
How to Use the Zeigarnik Effect to Create and Deliver the Aha! Moment
You can harness this phenomenon to create exceptional user experiences, especially during the onboarding process, by intentionally leveraging cognitive tension and open loops to captivate users and keep them engaged. Here are some best practices and pitfalls to avoid when using the Zeigarnik effect in user onboarding and product adoption:
Best practices:
- Create Intriguing Onboarding Experiences: During the onboarding process, introduce users to the core features and benefits of your product or service, leaving some aspects partially explored. By doing so, you create curiosity and cognitive tension, encouraging users to explore further to satisfy their curiosity.
- Utilize Gamification Elements: Gamification is an excellent way to incorporate the Zeigarnik Effect into UX design. Implement challenges, quests, or progress bars that users can complete, but always leave room for more. This approach motivates users to keep coming back to accomplish more tasks or achieve higher levels.
- Design for Progression and Continuation: Whether it’s an e-learning platform, a fitness app, or a content-heavy website, design experiences that enable users to continue their journey seamlessly.
Pitfalls to avoid:
- Overwhelming Users: While it’s important to create cognitive tension, it’s equally important not to overwhelm users with too many open loops or incomplete tasks. This can lead to frustration and disengagement.
- Lack of Clarity: Ensure that users understand the purpose of the open loops and how they can complete them. Ambiguity can lead to confusion and disinterest.
- Lack of Feedback: Provide feedback to users when they complete a task or reach a milestone. Feedback reinforces users’ progress and motivates them to continue.
Wrap Up
The union between psychology and product adoption holds boundless opportunities for tech founders, marketers, and product teams. By understanding human behaviour, you can create experiences that not only attract users but also keep them engaged for the long haul. Remember, the Aha! Moment awaits — let’s make it unforgettable.
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