All humans are motivated by three things
At the core of every thought & every action lie three motives.
- to seek pleasure and avoid pain;
- to seek hope and avoid fear;
- to seek social acceptance and avoid rejection.
We dress up other motives as individual,separate entities but they can all be distilled down to one of these motives.
Buying new clothes? Social acceptance.
Taking ecstasy? Seeking pleasure.
Mowing the front lawn? Social acceptance.
Waiting for that next promotion? Hope & social acceptance.
The list could, clearly, go on forever.
Yet, when we talk about products, we rarely talk about motivation.
We rarely delve into the core motivation behind an action. We stay at a high level, just brushing the surface, somehow afraid of getting our hands dirty in the problem.
So we end up building a mediocre solution that doesn’t quite scratch the itch, because we incorrectly identified a user’s core motivation.
Therefore ask yourself:
How is your product aiding & abetting one of these core motivations?
How is it conveying the message that our product will help you achieve x?
How is it enabling the user to achieve x?
How are you then triggering the user to achieve x?
