The Psychology of Engagement

I’m taking a Section School course on the psychology of engagement, about how to make your product habitually engaging to your ideal user. The idea is to appeal to a sense of internal discomfort of some kind: boredom, uncertainty, fear of missing out, health concerns, to name a few. And instill a behavior to satisfy that unmet need. You want to identify the hurdles to use your product, whether it’s time, money, cognitive effort, non-routine practice, then figure out how to overcome the hurdles, perhaps by pointing out that the product is in limited supply or reframing the product from a different angle, so it’s seen as more attractive.

This made me think about products that are highly engaging, which may or may not be good for us, especially when we partake of them in large doses. So many convenience apps come to mind now. In my view, no matter our life station, we still want to be happy, healthy, and wise. Then, the big questions are: What products deliver on these universally sought outcomes? How? And how can we use them for our growth?