Three Types of Triggers for Habit Designers (2024)

Like every designer, Habit Designers operate under constraints. Triggers are where all habits start, and picking the right one is often the biggest challenge in designing a new habit.

In “Where Habits Come From” I explained that a habit is a behavior that has been paired to a trigger using reinforcement. But when every perception could potentially trigger a habit, how can a designer ensure that their habit is the one that’s triggered?

It starts with picking the right trigger.

Here, I’ll discuss three types of trigger: external, internal, and synthetic. These each have different strengths and weaknesses, and each can be used to design great behaviors that form lasting habits.

Let’s look more closely at each type of trigger.

External Triggers — Triggers All Around

When most people think of triggers, then think of external triggers. The sight of a TV remote, the sound of police sirens, or the smell of fresh baked cookies are all external triggers. Anything in a user’s environment can be an external trigger, and each can be paired to trigger a particular behavior.

For example, when some people smell cigarette smoke, it triggers the behavior of smoking. Mobile app engagement is often driven by external triggers. Users open Waze (behavior) when they get in the car (trigger). Yelp wants you to open it (behavior) when you’re out looking for dinner (trigger).

If you want users to open your app in response to an external trigger there are some important questions you should ask:

• Is there a behavior already attached to your target trigger?
• If so, do you need to replace that behavior or can you use “behavior chaining” (more on this later) to build upon it?
• If you can detect when users are exposed to the target trigger, can you use a synthetic trigger (see below) to smooth them in to a habit?

Internal Triggers — Triggers in Your Head

Internal triggers (sometimes called ‘Endogenous Triggers’) are things that users sense inside their selves; their feelings or thoughts. These can be things like hunger, remembering that your favorite bakery is nearby, boredom, thinking about the taste of cinnamon, anxiety, thinking of someone you used to go out drinking with.

Unlike external triggers, these are ‘inner’ events that are private to a person’s brain. They have the same power as external triggers to initiate behavioral habits — and Behavior Designers find some particular internal triggers highly attractive to pair their product with.

A word of caution:

When the behavior of interacting with your app is paired to an internal negative emotional trigger, users may come to resent that behavior. Often they will refer to the behavior (and app) as “addictive”, “pointless”, or worse: “destructive.” They will seek to remove your app and behavior from their life and go out of their way to evangelize against your app and how destructive it can be. This can be a toxic outcome for your Behavior Design and app.

If you’re targeting a internal trigger, ask yourself:

• Is there already a behavior coupled to that trigger?
• If so, do you need to replace it or should you use “behavior chaining” (more on this later)?
• If not, can you detect the trigger and use a synthetic trigger to smooth the user into their new habit?

Example: The Internal Trigger of Boredom

Example: Yo-yo Dieting: Internal Triggers Gone Awry

Synthetic Triggers — Triggers Made by You

Synthetic triggers are triggers that have been intentionally constructed by you, the Behavior Designer, to trigger a particular behavior. These triggers are special because you have control over when, where, and how users experience them. Triggers created by other designers cannot be treated like synthetic triggers because you can’t control them (the other designer does).

For example, the particular branded color red on a co*ke machine, the ‘M’ of McDonalds, or the distinctive smell of Cinnabun can be viewed as synthetic triggers by the design team that controls them. Each of these were intentionally designed — and paired — to specific consumption behaviors. But to any other designer these are just external triggers; they are uncontrollable features of the user’s environment.

But the design of synthetic triggers is not restricted to advertising! The dramatic increase in smartphone usage and the omnipresence of mobile technology provides Behavior Designers with a new powerful set of tools for designing and implementing synthetic triggers for their users. The always-on web connections of mobile devices and the emergence of ‘push’-based web services are a powerful way to remotely (and dynamically) present synthetic triggers to users and prompt certain behaviors.

Notifications are easy to send, the hard part is sending the right ones at the right time. If you send a user a notification and they don’t perform the target behavior, then the ling between the trigger and the behavior is now weaker.

Why didn’t the user respond to the trigger? There are three reasons that a trigger might not work: (1) the user doesn’t understand what they’re supposed to do, (2) they don’t have the ability to do what they are supposed to do, or (3) they aren’t motivated to do the behavior. If you can isolate why they didn’t respond to the trigger you can change the trigger to be more effect. That is the biggest strength of the synthetic trigger; you can change it.

If you objective is long-term behavior change, then you need to eventually transition users off of synthetic triggers. If a user stops using your app, and the notifications go away, so will the habit. If you transition a user on to an external or internal trigger, then their new habit will outlast the app.

Let me know what else you’re like to know about habits and triggers by commenting or tweeting T. Dalton Combs.