Designing A Streak System: The UX And Psychology Of Streaks

Designing A Streak System: The UX And Psychology Of Streaks — Smashing Magazine

Skip to main content Start reading the article Jump to list of all articles Jump to all topics20 min readUX, Design, Psychology, StorytellingShare on Twitter, LinkedInAbout The AuthorI Code. I Write. Meme Rules. Ok, but seriously, I’m a web and mobile developer who writes a lot. In my spare time, I like to build products that would … More about Victor ↬Email NewsletterYour (smashing) email Weekly tips on front-end & UX.Trusted by 182,000+ folks. See User Testing Live How To Measure UX and Design Impact, 8h video + UX training Celebrating 10 million developers Naming Design Systems with Samantha Gordashko Advertise on Smashing Magazine Custom Web Forms for Angular, React, & Vue. Your backend. Smart Interface Design Patterns, 45 lessons + UX trainingWhat makes streaks so powerful and addictive? To design them well, you need to understand how they align with human psychology. Victor Ayomipo breaks down the UX and design principles behind effective streak systems.I’m sure you’ve heard of streaks or used an app with one. But ever wondered why streaks are so popular and powerful? Well, there is the obvious one that apps want as much of your attention as possible, but aside from that, did you know that when the popular learning app Duolingo introduced iOS widgets to display streaks, user commitment surged by 60%. Sixty percent is a massive shift in behaviour and demonstrates how “streak” patterns can be used to increase engagement and drive usage.At its most basic, a streak is the number of consecutive days that a user completes a specific activity. Some people also define it as a “gamified” habit or a metric designed to encourage consistent usage.But streaks transcend beyond being a metric or a record in an app; it is more psychological than that. Human instincts are easy to influence with the right factors. Look at these three factors: progress, pride, and fear of missing out (commonly called FOMO). What do all these have in common? Effort. The more effort you put into something, the more it shapes your identity, and that is how streaks crosses into the world of behavioural psychology.Now, with great power comes great responsibility, and because of that, there’s a dark side to streaks.In this article, we’ll be going into the psychology, UX, and design principles behind building an effective streak system. We’ll look at (1) why our brains almost instinctively respond to streak activity, (2) how to design streaks in ways that genuinely help users, and (3) the technical work involved in building a streak pattern.The Psychology Behind StreaksTo design and build an effective streak system, we need to understand how it aligns with how our brains are wired. Like, what makes it so effective to the extent that we feel so much intense dedication to protect our streaks?There are three interesting, well-documented psychology principles that support what makes streaks so powerful and addictive.Loss AversionThis is probably the strongest force behind streaks. I say this because most times, you almost can’t avoid this in life.Think of it this way: If a friend gives you $100, you’d be happy. But if you lost $100 from your wallet, that would hurt way more. The emotional weight of those situations isn’t equal. Loss hurts way more than gain feels good.Let’s take it further and say that I give you $100 and ask you to play a gamble. There’s a 50% chance you win another $100 and a 50% chance you lose the original $100. Would you take it? I wouldn’t. Most people wouldn’t. That’s loss aversion.If you think about it, it is logical, it is understandable, it is human.The concept behind loss aversion is that we feel the pain of losing something twice as much as the pleasure of gaining something of equal value. In psychological terms, loss lingers more than gains do.You probably see how this relates to streaks. To build a noticeable streak, it requires effort; as a streak grows, the motivation behind it begins to fade; or more accurately, it starts to become secondary.Here’s an example: Say your friend has a three-day streak closing their “Move Rings” on their Apple Watch. They have almost nothing to lose beyond wanting to achieve their goal and be consistent. At the same time, you have an impressive 219-day streak going. Chances are that you are trapped by the fear of losing it. You most likely aren’t thinking about the achievement at this point; it’s more about protecting your invested effort, and that is loss aversion.Duolingo explains how loss aversion contributes to a user’s reluctance to break a long streak, even on their laziest days. In a way, a streak can turn into a habit when loss aversion settles in.The Fogg Behaviour Model (B = MAP)Now that we understand the fear of losing the effort invested in longer streaks, another question is: What makes us do the thing in the first place, day after day, even before the streak gets big?That’s what the Fogg Behaviour Model is about. It is relatively simple. A behaviour (B) only occurs when three factors — Motivation (M), Ability (A), and Prompt (P) — align at the same moment. Thus, the equation B=MAP.If any of these factors, even one, is missing at that moment, the behaviour won’t happen.So, for a streak system to be efficient and recurring, all three factors must be present:MotivationThis is fragile and not something that is consistently present. There are days when you’re pumped to learn Spanish, and days you don’t even feel an iota of willpower to learn the language. Motivation by itself to build a habit is unreliable and a losing battle from day one.AbilityTo compensate for the limitations of motivation, ability is critical. In this context, ability means the ease of action, i.e, the effort is so easy that it’s unrealistic to say it isn’t possible. Most apps intentionally use this. Apple Fitness just needs you to stand for one minute in an hour to earn a tick towards your Stand goal. Duolingo only needs one completed lesson. These tasks do not require all that much effort. The barrier is so low that even on your worst days, you can do it. But the combined effort of an ongoing streak is where the idea of losing that streak kicks in.PromptThis is what completes the equation. Humans are naturally forgetful, so yes, ability can get us 90% there. But a prompt reminds us to act. Streaks are persistent by design, so users need to be constantly reminded to act. To see how powerful a prompt can be, Duolingo did an A/B test to see if a little red badge on the app’s icon increased consistent usage. It produced a 6% increase in daily active users. Just a red badge.Model LimitationsAll this being said, there is a limitation to the Fogg model whereby critics and modern research have noticed that a design that relies too heavily on prompts, like aggressive notifications, risks creating mental fatigue. Constant notifications and overtime could cause users to churn. So, watch out for that.The Zeigarnik EffectHow do you feel when you leave a task of project half-done? That irritates many people because unfinished tasks occupy more mental space than the things we complete. When something is done and gone, we tend to forget it. When something is left undone, it tends to weigh on our minds.This is exactly why digital products use artificial progress indicators, like Upwork’s profile completion bar, to let a user know that their profile is only “60% complete”. It nudges the user to finish what they started.Upwork’s profile completion progress bar. (Large preview)Let’s look at another example. You have five tasks in a to-do list app, and at the end of the day, you only check four of them as completed. Many of us will feel unaccomplished because of that one unfinished task. That, right there, is the Zeigarnik effect.The Zeigarnik effecthe was demonstrated by psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who described that we tend to keep incomplete tasks active in our memory longer than completed tasks.A streak pattern naturally taps into this in UX design. Let’s say you are on day 63 of a learning streak. At that point, you’re in an ongoing pattern of unfinished business. Your brain would rarely forget about it as it sits in the back of your mind. At this point, your brain becomes the one sending you notifications.When you put these psychological forces together, you begin to truly understand why streaks aren’t just a regular app feature; they are capable of reshaping human behaviour.But somewhere along the line — I can’t say exactly when, as it differs for everyone — things reach a point where a streak shifts from “fun” to something you feel you can’t afford to lose. You don’t want 58 days of effort to go to waste, do you? That is what makes a streak system effective. If done right, streaks help users build astounding habits that accomplish a goal. It could be reading daily or hitting the gym consistently.These repeated actions (sometimes small) compound over time and become evident in our daily lives. But there are two sides to every coin.The Thin Line Between Habit And CompulsionIf you have been following along, you can already tell there’s a dark side to streak systems. Habit formation is about consistency with a repeated goal. Compulsion, however, is the consistency of working on a goal that is no longer needed but held onto out of fear or pressure. It is a razor-thin line.You brush your teeth every morning without thinking; it is automatic and instinctive, with a clear goal of having good breath. That’s a streak that forms a good habit. An ethical streak system gives users space to breathe. If, for some reason, you don’t brush in the morning, you can brush at noon. Imperfection is allowed without fear of losing a long effort.Compulsion takes the opposite route, whereby a streak makes you anxious, you feel guilty or even exhausted, and sometimes, it feels like you haven’t accomplished anything, despite all your work. You act not because you want to, but because you’re subconsc