- Behavior
“A specific, observable action that a person takes in response to a particular situation or stimulus.” Not a thought, a feeling or an intention: something you can see or measure.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, “Some basic definitions”
- Rule 0
“People must obtain more value from your product than the effort the product demands from them.” The rule the whole method serves; the book calls it the foundation of user retention.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, the rules of a Behavioral Startup
- Actor
Anyone your product asks effort from. Model A maps three roles (uses, pays, decides usage) that can land on one person or on several, like the kid who plays with a toy, the aunt who bought it and the parent who allows it.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model A: Actors and Roles
- Value Evident
The moment an actor notices their effort paid off. If the product solves a need but the person never perceives it, then for their next decision it solved nothing.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model V: Making Value Evident; The Behavioral Handbook, chapter 10
- Required behavior
A behavior the product requires from actors before it can produce value: a station they must pass through on the way, like buying a ticket before you can ride the subway.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model BF: Building a Funnel
- Objective behavior
The behavior that, when performed, makes value explicit to an actor, closing the loop of effort. The book also calls it the target behavior; noticing your salary landed in your bank account is one.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model V: Making Value Evident
- Behavioral funnel
The map of your product: how one behavior flows into the next on the path to solving a need, drawn like a subway map where each station is a behavior. It’s a funnel because at every step people can continue or drop out.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model BF: Building a Funnel
- Trigger (and saliency)
Anything that gets the behavior considered: a notification, the toothbrush on the sink, hunger itself. Saliency is the first test a trigger has to pass, standing out enough from its background to get sensed, and it’s relational: a red light that vanishes in a fair is impossible to miss in a dark room.
Source: The Behavioral Handbook, Part 0 and chapter 1 (B.J. Fogg now calls the trigger a “prompt”)
- Ability
How much effort a behavior feels like it takes: The Behavioral Startup treats it as a measurement of the perceived effort required. The Handbook splits it in three that fail separately: cognitive (knowing how), physical (the body doing it) and resource (the time, money or tools at hand).
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Fogg Behavior Model; The Behavioral Handbook, Part II
- Motivation
The promise of value: not the value itself, the promise, weighed before the effort is spent. Motivation gets someone to start; Value Evident is what makes them come back.
Source: The Behavioral Handbook, Part III; The Behavioral Startup, Fogg Behavior Model
- ERG theory (Clayton Alderfer)
Clayton Alderfer’s reworking of Maslow’s hierarchy into three kinds of need: Existence (staying safe, stable, provided for), Relatedness (belonging, being seen, mattering to others) and Growth (getting better, achieving, contributing). It’s the N in ANVERSO.
Source: The Behavioral Startup, Model N: Types of Needs (where the middle one is called Relationships); The Behavioral Handbook, Part III
- Friction
Whatever makes a behavior harder: an extra step, a pause, a cost. Removing it is ability work; adding it on purpose makes a behavior less likely, like the dialog that asks you to type a project’s name before deleting it. The test: would the person thank you for it if they understood exactly why it’s there?
Source: The Behavioral Handbook, chapter 11: Friction & Deterrence
Want the terms in motion? Start with what behavioral design is, or go straight to why people don’t use your product.
