Nir Eyal
Nir Eyal is a writer at Nir and Far, a blog that cover aspects of psychology, technology, and business in relation to user experience design, behavioral economics, and neuroscience. On Nir and Far, Eyal writes to help companies create behaviors that benefit their users, while educating people on how to build healthful habits in their own lives. He also writes for TechCrunch, Forbes, and Psychology Today, and is also a frequent speaker at industry conferences and Fortune 500 companies.
Eyal is the author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products” and lectures at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design School. His prior work experience includes his time in the video gaming and advertising industries.
Eyal holds a degree from Harvard University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Crunchbase profile →Latest from Nir Eyal
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Crunch Network
Your Fitness App Is Making You Fat
Fitness apps are all the rage. An explosion of new companies and products want to track your steps and count your calories with the aim of melting that excess blubber. There’s just one problem — most of these apps don’t work. In fact, there is good reason to believe they make us fatter. One study called out “the dirty secret of wearables,” citing that… Read More
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Crunch Network
The Psychology Of Notifications
In his famed experiments, Ivan Pavlov trained his dogs to associate mealtime with the ring of a bell. Pavlov found he could elicit an involuntary physical response in his dogs with a simple jingle. Every time his bell rang, the dogs began to salivate. Today, the beeps, buzzes, rings, flags, pushes and pings blasting from our phones prompt a similar response. They are the Pavlovian bell of the… Read More
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Crunch Network
To Create A Habit, Focus On The Reward
On May 1, 1981, American Airlines launched its frequent flyer program AAdvantage. Since then, a flood of loyalty programs have attempted to bring customers back through rewards. Today, you can become a card-carrying member of just about anything: hotels, supermarkets, drugstores and pizza chains. If you’re in a store, chances are someone will ask, “Would you like to join our… Read More
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Crunch Network
Kim Kardashian: Hollywood And The Viral “Oops”
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology and business at NirAndFar.com. He is the author of “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products”. Recently, I started looking into the explosively popular new game Kim Kardashian: Hollywood. The game has ranked at or near the top of Apple’s U.S. App Store charts for the most downloaded… Read More
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Crunch Network
Is Some Tech Too Addictive?
Addiction can be a difficult thing to see. From outward appearances, Dr. Zoe Chance looked fine. A professor at the Yale School of Management with a doctorate from Harvard, Chance’s pedigree made what she revealed in front of a crowded TEDx audience all the more shocking. “I’m coming clean today telling this story for the very first time in its raw ugly detail,” she said. Read More
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Crunch Network
How To Build Habits In A Multi-Device World
Editor’s Note: This excerpt is authored by Nir Eyal and appears in Michal Levin’s new book, Designing Multi-Device Experiences. Nir Eyal is also the author of Hooked: A Guide to Building Habit Forming Products and blogs at NirAndFar.com. Allow me to take liberties with a philosophical question reworked for our digital age. If an app fails in the App Store and no one is… Read More
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Crunch Network
How To Cope with Your Insane Jealousy Of The WhatsApp Deal
Wednesday was my birthday. It should have been a great day. Then I heard the news. WhatsApp had been purchased by Facebook for $19 billion. When I read about the deal I blurted out the words, “Holy Crap!” so loudly that a stranger nearby gave me a disapproving look. Read More
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Crunch Network
Why Fads Fade: The Inevitable Death Of Flappy Bird
On February 8, 2014, an app called Flappy Bird held the coveted No. 1 spot in the Apple App Store. The app’s 29-year-old creator, Dong Nguyen, reported earning $50,000 a day from the game.
Then, the Vietnamese developer sent a shocking message. Read More -
Crunch Network
You’d Be Surprised By What Really Motivates Users
Earlier this month, Twitter co-founder Biz Stone unveiled his mysterious startup Jelly. The question-and-answer app was met with a mix of criticism and head scratching. Tech-watchers asked if the world really needed another Q&A service. Skeptics questioned how it would compete with existing solutions and pointed to the rocky history of previous products like Mahalo Answers, Formspring… Read More
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Crunch Network
Why Behavior Change Apps Fail To Change Behavior
Imagine walking into a busy mall when someone approaches you with an open hand. “Would you have some coins to take the bus, please?” he asks. But in this case, the person is not a panhandler. The beggar is a PhD. As part of a French study, researchers wanted to know if they could change how much money people gave to a total stranger using just a few specially encoded words. Read More
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The Curse Of The Network Effect
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business for Dashboard.io and on his blog NirAndFar.com. Ethan Stock lived the Silicon Valley dream. He had recently sold his company to eBay and emanated the tanned skin and relaxed composure you’d expect of someone who just cashed a big corporate check. But as we sat across from one another in a… Read More
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Temptation
How do products tempt us? What makes them so alluring? It is easy to assume we crave delicious food or impulsively check email because we find pleasure in the activity. But pleasure is just half the story. Temptation is more than just the promise of reward. Recent advances in neuroscience allow us to peer into the brain, providing a greater understanding of what makes us want. Read More
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Are Viral Loops Or Viral ‘Oops’ Driving Your App’s Growth?
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. Follow him @nireyal. Recently, MessageMe announced it had grown to 1 million users in a little over a week’s time. The revelation captured the attention of envious app makers throughout Silicon Valley, all of whom are searching for the secrets of customer acquisition… Read More
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This Will Be The Last Article You Read
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. I research and write about seductive technology and yet I struggle to resist its temptations. Much of my work is written for entrepreneurs and designers looking for ways to boost user engagement with their products. The rest of my writing is intended to increase awareness of… Read More
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Tech Is Making Meetings Worse, It’s Time For Digital Hat Racks
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. The first thing Don Draper does when he gets to his office is give his busty secretary a suggestive wink. The second thing he does is take off his fedora. Finally, depending on the severity of the previous night, he completes his morning routine with a stiff drink. Read More
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Ways To Get People To Do Things They Don’t Want To Do
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. A reader recently asked me a pointed question: “I’ve read your work on creating user habits. It’s all well and good for getting people to do things, like using an app on their iPhone, but I’ve got a bigger problem. How do I get people to do things… Read More
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Escape From Message Hell
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal blogs about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. We are caught in an endless cycle of messaging hell and the pattern is always the same. First, a new communication system is born — take email or Facebook, for example. Ease-of-use helps the product gain wide adoption and reach a critical mass of users. That’s… Read More
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Mass Persuasion, One User At A Time
Marketers are increasingly personalizing their products and services to meet their customers’ changing needs. But customization used in conjunction with powerful persuasion techniques is arming marketers with new weaponry to boost customer engagement and drive profits. Read More
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Getting Your Product Into the Habit Zone
As the web becomes an increasingly crowded place, users are desperate for solutions to sort through the online clutter. The Internet has become a giant hairball of choice-inhibiting noise and the need to make sense of it all has never been more acute. Just ask high-flying sites like Pinterest, Reddit, and Tumblr. These curated web portals connect millions of people to information they never… Read More
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Where Have The Users Gone?
Editor’s Note: Nir Eyal writes about the intersection of psychology, technology, and business at NirAndFar.com. He is the author of the forthcoming book “Hooked: How to Drive Engagement by Creating User Habits”. Step 1: Build an app. Step 2: Get users hooked to it. Step 3: Profit. It sounds simple and, given our umbilical ties to cell phones, social media, and email… Read More
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