SyncDevelopHer @ 8ThorpeRoad (May)
In the first SyncDevelopHer event held at the lovely No. 8 Thorpe Road, Karina Palyutina took time out of her busy schedule to share her experiences of building habit forming products.
(We also had a quick appearance by Lisa Donovan, who is scheduled to speak at a future SyncDevelopHER event)
Notes from Meetup:
Ever heard of Facebook addiction? Perhaps, you are addicted yourself. Every product is built to be used, but some are built to be used too much. Much like the fast food industry manipulates its customers into repeated excessive consumption, addiction to technology is a fast growing modern phenomenon. Today the best product or service doesn’t necessarily win, instead, success or failure largely depends on how well habit-forming techniques are exploited.
I believe that understanding the principles of habit-forming technologies will benefit anyone, as everyone is affected. A consumer must know how they are manipulated to make the best use of the products; an entrepreneur must learn to build addictiveness into the products to be competitive on the market; companies must learn to engage users to deliver the best services. This talk will examine the ways in which the addictions are engineered and how to use this information to your own advantage.
Karina graduated from the University of Cambridge as a Computer Scientist and has taught University undergraduates for 2 years since. Recently she founded Incented, a community for self-improvers who want to stay accountable. Karina also runs the Cambridge Accountability Meetup, where the local community of self-hackers share their personal habits.
