SUNDAY REWIND: The psychology behind successful products by Nathalie Nahai

This week’s Sunday Rewind is a #mtpcon San Francisco talk by author and web psychologist Nathalie Nahai called The psychology behind successful products.

In her talk, Nathalie explains the psychological principles behind the successful conversion, adoption and monetisation of products.

Conversion, she says, means hacking users’ decision-making by using one of three core psychological principles:

• Induce a positive emotional state
• Lower the cognitive load
• Create an experience of fluency

Nathalie includes several examples of these principles, and she highlights how to use them in a nice way or a naughty way. Successful products create habits, but they’re not always empowering. Apps like Twitter and Tinder hook you in by activating your dopamine system and into a pleasure-seeking loop of perpetually seeking reward. Four principles lie behind this behaviour:

• We seek more than we’re satisfied
• Anticipating vs. receiving a reward
• External triggers
• Small and unpredictable rewards

Nathalie says you mustn’t hack the dopamine loop to drive adoption. If you focus on creating empowering habits by offering clear, tangible benefits, creating a calm experience, and delighting your users, then they will associate you with a positive and empowering habit and you’ll induce loss aversion instead.

Read the original post and watch the video of Nathalie’s talk: The Psychology Behind Successful Products by Nathalie Nahai

If you want to elevate your product management game and witness inspiring and actionable keynotes at one of our #mtpcon conferences then you can secure your place at #mtpcon San Francisco today! Happening on June 14 – join us in-person or online.