Research has shown that motivation reveals that some of the tried-and-true methods for getting and keeping people motivated may have been tried, but they' re not quite true.
If people can see an end in sight they become more motivated because they are getting closer to full filling their goal.
An example of this would be a punch card for every coffee you buy you get closer to getting a free cup.
People love getting things for free, or if they feel like they are getting rewarded. Studies have shown that people who are part of a reward program, compared to customers that were not were found to smile more, communicated frequently with others in the environment and were more likely to leave a tip.
After the goal is reached however motivation and purchases plummet. Going back to the example of the punch card when you get that free coffee your goal is reached and now you have to start all over and buy ten more before you get that free one again. The closer you are to a goal the more willing you are to spend money to get you there, if you feel far away it, it won't be as important to spend money. This is the most at risk time to lose a customer. After you beat a video game are you really going to want to play it all over again right away, think about it.
Variable rewards are powerful, but there are different variable rewards that play into how powerful they can be. Interval schedules, and Ratio schedules are two of these things that can work in certain situations. Interval schedules provide a reward within a certain time after doing a task, while Ration Schedules give rewards based on the number of times that the task was done. The Examples they use in the book was rats receiving food after they pressed a certain object in the maze, the same works for humans. For operating conditions to work you need to have a reward that, that particular audience wants.
Reinforcement by rewarding someone causes pleasure and makes a person happy, this pleasure of excitement is called dopamine. Dopamine makes people addicted to seeking information. Dopamine makes you curious about ideas and makes you seek out more information willingly. There are two sensations related to dopamine the first is the wanting, which propels you to action and the other is liking which makes you feel satisfied. Drive only last so long however and if the individual can't find what they are searching for after a while they will give up: so the easier you make it for people to find the information the better (encourages searching).
Another thing that keeps people searching is unpredictability. Unpredictability is another thing related to dopamine. An example used in the book was when you get a text on your phone; you have no idea when it will arrive but when you hear that ding at that random moment and have no idea who it is from when stimulates you to reach out and check it, unless your in Scott Mansfield's class of course.
The next thing the author talks about is how people are lazy studies have shown that people will do the least amount of work to get the job done. Through evolution Humans have learned that they will survive longer and better if they conserve their energy.
Doing above and beyond rarely happens because people want to conserve their resources for the things that they desire any effort after they have reached those desires is considered a waste of energy and most peoples time.
Because people don't want to feel like they are wasting there time they try and spend as little amounts as possible to get answers and preform tasks, thus we should design websites for scanning not reading. less is more, stick with the important things.
Other ways to make people feel like they are not wasting precious time is to design your layout with shortcuts. As long as they are easy enough to learn, find, and use, just don't assume that each individual will use them just provide them in case they want to.
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