Why?

Wordle is taking over the world. Well, it’s taking over your social media feed. Maybe, depending on how excited people in your circle get about word games.

And I am not above trend-jacking to use this latest fad as a frame to explore design for behavior change.

Anytime an app can create this much momentum on its own, it warrants analysis.

So, while I really struggled with Wordle 213, (barely kept my streak alive on that one) I got to thinking of the design choices this simple game so effective at driving adoption.

We can learn something from the designers—other than which five-letter words contain the most vowels.

Eliminate all the friction

Wordle’s power for pulling people into a game is hard to adapt to traditional products.

This app isn’t making money (Edit: in the time since I started this article, apparently Wordle was bought by the New York Times). There are no adds, or in app purchases. You don’t sign up for an account.

There isn’t even a download—you play in your browser. There are about 15 seconds between your curiosity about those emoji glyphs and you trying to think of a word that stars with a “K” and ends with an “L”.

Compared to onboarding in almost anything else, that’s near instantaneous and friction-free.

Also, as we’ll talk about later, the short time commitment, and the ability to leave it and come back mid-puzzle all makes it easy enough to bypass resistance and start a game.

Playing to scarcity

Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing quickly. See: popular songs, jokes, and bottomless pancakes at IHOP.

If you overplay a game, eventually it will lose interest.

Wordle only gives you one puzzle a day, and everyone gets the same one. Like The New York Times crossword (Edit: I called it!), when you finish this one, you have to wait for tomorrow’s edition.

Therin lies the beauty: it creates anticipation. It leaves you wanting more.

Scarcity drives more adoption. It’s why deal-of-the-day websites were so popular. One thing for sale, that’s it. It creates outsized interest, craving, and ritual.

People who are in the habit of playing Wordle don’t want to miss their puzzle. You remember you can return to a new one, and it’s a pleasant surprise.

Other people posting their score is a reminder if it slipped down your ‘to-procrastinate’ list.

Triggering curiosity

Everyone sharing the same puzzles (and therefore, experience) leads to conversations. It recreates a micro-version of the shoptalk that bonds people working in the same industry.

You share a line or two on outcomes and strategy: Do you use the same starting word? Do you blow a guess to eliminate common letters? It’s simple enough to be easy, but just complex enough to invite those types of conversations.

When you see someone’s results, you get a small but incomplete look at their thought process. Besides wondering “Can I do better?” You also wonder how they got the answer (or didn’t).

Curiosity is a big motivator. Writers hate this, but it’s the one weird trick behind clickbait headlines like the one I used for this article. Sorry?

Satisfy the call to sharing

We all want to reach out, even when we have little to say.

We want to show people we are smart, capable, and interesting.

Posting your Wordle score in a family group chat is a far quicker and less self-promotional way of accomplishing that than thousand-word article reverse-engineering a word game as a case study for design behavior change.

When we do something that we’re proud of, we want to share it. Guessing the word in two tries, and I speak from experience, is so unexpected we want to share with others.

They don’t care as much as we do, of course, but the very act of sharing becomes a push for them to try the puzzle themselves. Maybe for no reason other than to put us in our place.

A genius move from the designer was not having a scoreboard. You have to make your own scoreboard with your own groups. That leads to the following point.

The ease of sharing the visually identifiable score was a great way to get people to build grassroots knowledge of the site (no ads needed). It’s weird enough and recognizable enough, that curiosity (see above) and the mere exposure effect make people likely to try.

Low-effort social pressure

I didn’t know what those blocks I kept seeing were, and when I finally searched to find out, I ended up playing.

This ties to curiosity mentioned above. Since people had to create their own scoreboard, they were triggering curiosity in their networks.

Since the only way to share your score is to paste it somewhere, if you wanted your score to be recognized, you needed to make your own scoreboard somewhere that was already visible.

This is true virality. Viruses co-opt existing cells to make new virus. Well, Wordle co-opted group chats and Facebook feeds to do just that: create more Wordle users.

The clever part is that no one is telling you to do anything! It just happens.

Don’t break the streak.

By numbering the puzzles and giving you a scoreboard showing you your streak of guesses, Wordle encourages you to come back for the next puzzle.

When a user succeeds with a puzzle, they are tempted to do another. But they have to wait.

That “always leave them wanting more” approach, coupled with the desire to keep the streak alive, motivates behavior.

The most powerful element of that is that it also decreases the burden. You might finish the puzzle in 5 minutes, so it is not asking enough of you to trigger resistance.

Add in the sequential numbering on the puzzles and you have powerful design choices motivating you to not break the chain.

Conclusion

Wordle has a certain lightning in a bottle quality to it that emerges with online trends.

But regardless of its improbable ascent to fad-of-the-moment, its design approach is sound.

In fact, if you look at the most viral, or successful, products that captivate their audiences, you will find some overlap.

Maybe the behavior change you are designing for is not as whimsical as a word guessing game. But I bet you can layer an element of social proof on top of your next technology deployment.

It’s likely that you could design an element that encourages users to not break the chain.

I’m sure you can appeal to their curiosity if you get creative.

Designing for behavior change is about understanding what people find interesting and building it into your work with careful, intentional choices.

That, and the knowledge that ALIEN makes a great starting word, are two lessons that were well worth it for me.

Post-Script:

I made a sort-of-resolution to myself that in 2022 I was going to show more of my work, as Austin Kleon puts it in his outstanding book of the same name. Writing has always been something I just do. But I shared very little.

I love taking notes and working through my ideas in text. That doesn’t do anybody but me any good.

I’m not great with self-promotion, but I am thinking of this less of me screaming into the room and more of me inviting you to a conversation.

I hope you’ll comment and share your own ideas if this resonates with you.