Return
Gentle reminder
Effort: Low
What to notice
A reminder about a draft quote says "2 fields to go."
How to build it
- Name the unfinished item and exactly how much remains.
- Cap the number of reminders and include a way to stop them.
- Take people straight to where they left off.
Measure
- Main metric
- Completion rate from reminders
- Guardrail
- Unsubscribe rate
When it backfires
Repeating the same nudge drives unsubscribes.
Theory behind it
Unfinished tasks (Zeigarnik and Ovsiankina)
People tend to return to interrupted tasks. The famous claim that unfinished tasks are remembered better did not hold up in a meta-analysis.
Contested
Goal-gradient effect
People speed up as they get closer to a goal.
Well supported
Hook Model
A product model where cycling through trigger, action, variable reward, and investment turns use into habit.
Practitioner framework