When you build software, sooner or later you’ll want to think about human behavior — most notably about what motivates humans.
I don’t mean Skinner boxes, points and ladders, variable reward schedules and the like as you might find them in “free to play but we have an in-game currency” games or in casinos.
Instead, I want you to think about human motivation in a sustainable manner that is also good for your users. Making them addicts isn’t the way.
If you build software products, chances are you’ve worried about adoption before.
Will anyone use what I’ve built? How can I get more people to use it? And why do people leave after a few days?
Many software developers use Twitter in their work, but how and why exactly do they use it? Why do some developers choose not to use Twitter, and what — if anything — do they use instead? We conducted a qualitative study to investigate these questions in depth.