Ability

What is ability in the Fogg model?

In the Fogg Behavior Model, ability concerns how easy a particular behavior is for someone to do. That includes skill, but also time, money, effort, and how the action fits into their life. Someone can know exactly what to do and still lack the time or resources to do it.

How it works

Fogg’s model brings together motivation, ability, and a prompt at the moment of action. Greater motivation can make some difficulty tolerable; making the action easier can reduce the motivation it requires. A prompt still has to arrive when the action is possible. Earlier versions called prompts “triggers.”

For Behavioral Design, this turns “make it simple” into a more useful question: what, specifically, makes this behavior difficult for this person?

The six elements of simplicity

Fogg’s 2009 paper described six factors:

• Time: How long does the behavior take?
• Money: What does it cost?
• Physical effort: How much movement or strain does it require?
• Mental effort: How much thinking does it take?
• Social deviance: Does it conflict with social expectations?
• Non-routine: How familiar is the action?

What is the ability chain?

Fogg’s current explanation of ability emphasizes the resource in shortest supply at the moment of action. Reducing physical effort does little to solve a money problem. Find the constraint that is making the action hard.

Making an action feasible is separate from choosing a prompt. Both matter, but they answer different questions: can the person do it, and what will remind them?