55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62

> 55. People are Motivated By Progress, Mastery, and ControlThere are many activities that people engage in, even over a long period of time, that require high expertise, and yet offer no monetary or even career-building benefit. People like to feel that they are making progress. They like to feel that they are learning and mastering new knowledge and skills.SMALL SIGNS OF PROGRESS CAN HAVE A BIG EFFECTShowing a progress bar or where people are on a task helps motivate people move forward.

Takeaways If you want to build loyalty and have repeat customers (for example, repeat visitors to your Web site), you’ll need to have activities that people inherently want to do (such as connecting with their friends, or mastering something new), rather than just activities for which people are getting paid. If people have to do a task that’s boring, you can help motivate them by acknowledg- ing that it’s boring and then letting them do it their own way. Look for ways to help people set goals and track them. Show people how they’re progressing toward goals.

> 56. People's Ability to Delay Gratification (or Not) Starts YoungStarting in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Walter Mischel conducted a series of studies on delayed gratification. Years later he followed up with the original people in his study. He found that when the people in the study who were able to delay gratification became teenagers, they were more successful in school, received higher test scores on the SAT, and were better able to cope with stress and frustration. He followed them into adulthood and the differences continued. On the other side, the children in the original studies who could not delay gratification as preschoolers were more likely to have problems as adults, including drug abuse.

Takeaways Some people are good at delaying gratification and others are not. People who are not good at delaying gratification will be more suggestible to images and messages of scarcity (for example, “only three left in stock” or “only available till the end of the month”).

> 57. People Are Inherently Lazy Research shows us that people will do the least amount of work possible to get a task done.IS LAZY ANOTHER WORD FOR EFFICIENT? "Satisficing" is a principle humans work on. SATISFY PLUS SUFFICE EQUALS SATISFICEHerbert Simon is credited with coining the term satisfice. He used it to describe a deci- sion-making strategy in which the person decides to pick the option that is adequate, rather than optimal. The idea of satisficing is that the cost of making a complete analysis of all the options is not only not worth it, but may be impossible. DESIGN WEB SITES FOR SCANNING, NOT READINGThe first impressions about satisficing can be critically important in determining whether someone stays at the Web site or not.

Takeaways Assume that people will get things done with the least amount of work possible. That may not always be the case, but it’s true more often than not. People will satisfice, that is, look for the good-enough solution rather than the optimal solution.

> 58. People Will Look for Shortcuts Only If The Shortcuts are Easy People will look for ways to do something faster and with fewer steps. This is espe- cially true if it’s a task they’re doing over and over. But if the shortcut is too hard to find, or if a habit is ingrained, then people will keep doing it the old way. PROVIDE DEFAULTSDefaults reduce the amount of work needed to complete a task. When you provide defaults, for example, filling in the person’s name and address automatically on a Web form, then there is less work to finish the form. But there are some potential problems with defaults. One is that people don’t always notice defaults, and so may end up accepting a default without meaning to. When defaults create more work, not lessWhen you go through to a previous process again, it automatically goes to your last preference. This may hinder you because you may be unaware that it had set the last variables as a default. What if you meant it to be different? The outcome may not be ideal.

Takeaways Provide shortcuts as long as they are easy to learn, find, and use, but don’t assume that people will always use them. Provide defaults if you know what most people will want to do most of the time, and if the result of choosing a default by mistake does not cause costly errors.

> 59. People Assume It's You, Not the Situation People are quick to judge someone's personality/attributes through a scenario but never really know why someone did or didn't do something; rather the situation they're in. The judging could be described as fundamental attribution error. BUT FOR YOU, IT’S SITUATIONALOn the other hand, if you’re analyzing and explaining your own behavior and motivations, then you will tend to think the opposite of what you attribute to others. In other words, you assume that your motivation and behavior are based on a reaction to the situation, not to personality factors. PEOPLE CAN’T STOP IT EVEN WHEN THEY KNOW THEY’RE DOING ITResearch shows that it’s very hard to stop making fundamental attribution errors. Even when you know you’re doing it, and even if you know it’s not accurate, you’ll still make the same error.

Takeaways If you’re interviewing people about how they would use the product you’re design- ing, be careful of how you interpret or analyze the interviews. You’ll have a tendency to think about “what people are going to do” based on personality and miss the situational factors. If you’re interviewing a subject matter expert or domain expert who’s telling you what people do or will do, think carefully about what you’re hearing. The expert may miss situational factors and put too much value on people’s personalities. Try to build in ways to cross-check your own biases. If your work requires you to make a lot of decisions about why people do what they do, you might want to stop before act- ing on your decisions and ask yourself, “Am I making a fundamental attribution error?”

> 60. Forming A Habit Takes A Long Time and Requires Small StepsHOW LONG IT TAKES TO CEMENT A HABITTo form a habit, depending on the person and the behavior it varies. The average amount is 66 days. Some people took shorter (18 days) or even longer (254 days).SOME BEHAVIORS BECOME HABIT FASTER THAN OTHERSThe more complex the behavior, the longer it took to become a habit (no surprise there). Participants who chose to create an exercise habit took one-and-a-half times longer to make it automatic than those who were building a new habit about eating fruit at lunch. HOW BAD IS IT TO MISS A DAY?If people missed a day here and there, it didn’t have a significant effect on how long it took to build the habit. But too many missed days, or multiple days in a row, did have an effect, and slowed the creation of the habit. Not surprisingly, the more consistent people were, the more quickly they reached the automatic point, although missing one day did not delay habit formation. Missing two or more days did.

Takeaways Give people a small, easy task to do, rather than a complex one. Give people a reason to come back and do the task every day or almost every day. Be patient. Creating a habit may take a long time.

> 61. People are More Motivated to Compete When There are Fewer Competitors COMPETING AGAINST 10 COMPETITORS VS. COMPETING AGAINST 100The fewer amount of people involved the higher motivation. People feel like competing against a small group would give them a better chance to win.

Takeaways Competition can be motivating, but don’t overdo it. Showing more than 10 competitors can dampen the motivation to compete.

> 62. People are Motivated By AutonomyAutonomy motivates people because it makes them feel in control. People like autonomy. Rather than hire an expert, people often want to do things on their own. An example is App Inventor from Google that helps people create their own apps The unconscious part of the brain likes to feel that it’s in control. If you’re in control, then there is less likelihood that you'll be in danger. The "old brain" is all about keeping you out of danger. Control equals keep out of danger equals do it yourself equals motivated by being autonomous.Takeaways People like to do things themselves, and are motivated to do so. If you want to increase self-service, make sure your messaging is about having control and being able to do it yourself.