Progress
Build your plan
Effort: High
What to notice
Each choice adds a piece to a preview of the finished plan.
How to build it
- Break the plan into three to five choices.
- Update the preview and the price with each choice.
- Let people name and save what they built.
Measure
- Main metric
- Sign-up rate among builders
- Guardrail
- Abandonment midway through building
When it backfires
Too many choices and people never finish, and the IKEA effect disappears.
Theory behind it
IKEA effect
Things people build themselves feel more valuable than the same things made by others.
Limited evidence
Self-Determination Theory
People keep going on their own when they feel autonomy, competence, and relatedness.
Well supported
Goal-gradient effect
People speed up as they get closer to a goal.
Well supported
Playable demos
Try the same mechanism in a playable demo.