Goal Gradient Hypothesis

Definition

The tendency to approach a goal increases with proximity to the goal.

Explanation

The Goal Gradient Effect is a psychological phenomenon where individuals are more motivated to complete a task as they perceive they are nearing the end of it. This effect suggests that as people get closer to achieving a goal, they tend to accelerate their efforts and are more driven to give a final push to reach the finish line.

This increased motivation as the goal comes into sight can be seen in various contexts:

• Progress Bars: Users often stick with a task longer if they see a progress bar approaching completion. For instance, a progress bar stuck at 86% motivates users to continue until it reaches 100%.
• Work and Productivity: Employees might work overtime to resolve the remaining customer tickets, driven by the desire to reduce the number of open tickets to zero by the end of the business day.
• Fitness: In a gym setting, individuals might push with all their might to finish that one last rep, motivated by the countdown and the proximity to completing their workout.

This phenomenon is ingrained in human behaviour and is frequently utilised in everyday life to combat procrastination and complete tasks. Product teams leverage the Goal Gradient Effect by designing experiences that visually or numerically show progress towards a goal, thereby encouraging users to stick with their products and complete their tasks.

How to apply?

As a product team, these are a few ways to utilize this principle in your products to enhance the user experience

• Keep Tasks Short and Achievable: Design tasks within the product to be short and quickly accomplishable. This allows users to experience frequent progress and completion, keeping them motivated.
• Gamify the Experience: Introduce gamification into the product, such as points, badges, and rewards, to give users a sense of accomplishment and motivation to continue using the product.
• Provide Progress Updates: Regularly inform users about their progress towards completing tasks. Displaying percentages or progress bars helps users see how close they are to finishing their goals, encouraging them to push further.

• Enable Progress Saving and Resumption: Allow users to save their progress and easily resume tasks from where they left off. This reduces the time and effort of restarting the task and helps maintain their interest to complete the task.
• Use Visual Cues and Legacy Colors: Adding a visual flare with legacy colours make task progress easilty recognizable and more intuitive. This enhances user experience by providing clear and immediate feedback on their progress.

Few Examples includes

• Fitness apps use this effect to let the user finish the workout as designed.

In the above example, you can look at the color combination based on the percentage of workout done. Intuitively, it is telling the user to finish the workouts and get to green (above 80%) from red (0%).

• Workplace Motivation: Employees often work harder during appraisal month and push themselves to finish tasks more than during prior months.

Business usecases

• Delivery status: In the e-commerce, travel, and logistics sectors, businesses keep users updated on the time-to-reach destination and delivery status. During product deliveries, dissecting the entire process into steps helps users track the whereabouts of their orders. For bus rides, aggregators show the route on a map to provide the estimated time to reach the destination. Consistent updates on progress and time to reach the desired goal assist users in making informed decisions and increase the likelihood of conversion.

• Progress Bars: Showing the progress in percentage with a progress bar makes users stick to the page until the task is finished.
• Daily Reading Goals: Setting a daily goal to read 20-30 pages is more effective than a yearly goal to read 30 books, as it provides a sense of regular achievement.
• Instant Rewards: Rewarding your customer sooner has a stronger effect on your brand than later, which is why discounts (immediate rewards) are often more effective than cashbacks (delayed rewards).
• Profile Completion: Dissecting the profile update into steps, making the initial step the default to begin the progress, and showing the percentage completion at every step prompts users to finish updating it to 100%.

Conclusion

The Goal Gradient Effect is a psychological principle that product teams use to give rewards and incentives to their users, keeping them motivated and engaged with their product. By designing experiences that break down tasks into manageable steps and showing clear progress over time, product teams can maintain user motivation and engagement, ultimately leading to higher conversion rates and user satisfaction.

It’s understood that people are more motivated to finish tasks the closer they get to the finish line. Product teams can use designs such as progress bars, gamification, frequent progress updates, and visually intuitive cues to keep users informed and engaged until the task is completed. This principle is so effective that it’s being incorporated into business strategies to create better user experiences, keeping users motivated and engaged throughout and fostering long-term loyalty towards the product.

Thank you for taking the time to read my article. I hope you found the information valuable.

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