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Novelty Effect<br>By Gojko Adzic · Published 16 October 2024 · Updated 2 August 2026<br>The Novelty Effect (also known as Novelty Bias) is a short-term psychological response to something new, unexpected or unfamiliar, causing a temporary change in behaviour. The Novelty Effect explains why shallow engagement gimmicks (for example gamification) look good in research but produce no significant long-term results or behaviour change. It can significantly skew the results of A/B tests, and may need special treatment to detect and resolve. From a more positive perspective, it provides a temporary window of opportunity for products to lead users to a first valuable experience in early engagement, as the boost in interest can cause increased tolerance of UX issues and a temporary willingness to spend more effort.<br>This article explains the Novelty Effect and provides recommendations how to detect and manage it.<br>Novelty Effect Example<br>Novelty Creates Attention But Does Not Create Motivation<br>Novelty Effect in Research<br>How Long Does the Novelty Effect Last?<br>Detecting the Novelty Bias in A/B TestingConfusion might produce the same effect as delight

What Causes the Novelty Effect?<br>Novelty Effect Example<br>Heightened awareness or curiosity stimulates people to behave differently when they encounter something new, but after a while the novelty wears off and people go back to their regular behaviour.<br>Novelty effects are the first responses to a technology, not the patterns of usage that will persist over time as the product ceases to be new.<br>– JaYoung Sung, Henrik I. Christensen and Rebecca E. Grinter, Robots in the Wild: Understanding Long-term Use

Grace Shin, Yuanyuan Feng, Mohammad Hossein Jarrahi and Nicci Gafinowitz report results from a study with personal fitness activity tracker usage, where they calculated that the novelty period lasted roughly three months. Once the participants learned that their daily patterns were repetitive, and the novelty of the tracking app stopped being interesting, one group of people just stopped using the trackers. The participants who continued to use the trackers had previous reasons or external motivation. Some had a medical condition, some had an existing exercise habit, a social group to compete with, or a goal they had set themselves. The research results, if taken too early, might incorrectly suggest the trackers had a positive impact on people’s behaviour, when in fact there was no long-term change.<br>Gamified features and gimmicks often trigger a novelty effect. Luiz Rodrigues and colleagues compared gamified and non-gamified versions of a university course with 756 students over fourteen weeks. Engagement increased for roughly four weeks, then declined as the gamification points and badges became ordinary. Relying on the early data would have given the false impression that gamification was a major long-term driver of engagement, when a large part of it was a temporary surge.<br>Crystal Tsay and colleagues reached similar conclusions researching a gamified learning platform, and concluded that gamification “helps greatly with onboarding users, but on its own it cannot keep them once the novelty effect is gone”.<br>Novelty Bias<br>Novelty Creates Attention But Does Not Create Motivation<br>Novelty effects can cause a temporary boost in interest, and extra effort or time users are willing to spend exploring something in the short term. The Technology Acceptance Model suggests that a lack of perceived usefulness and perceived difficulty of use leads to a decline in adoption. The Novelty Effect can temporarily compensate for those two perceptions, but it cannot eliminate them over a longer period. The Novelty Effect on its own creates attention but does not create long-term motivation or outcomes.<br>Users will have a temporary interest during the novelty period to explore, but if a product does not connect users to something they already wanted, the boost simply postpones the churn. Tsay and colleagues demonstrated that the increased usage persists if the users achieve meaningful outcomes during the novelty period.<br>in the second iteration of the gamified system we were able to sustain engagement with the ELs and the novelty effect of the gamified learning system only had the positive on-boarding impact and we experienced no drop in engagement once the novelty wore off [….] the learners were locked into the system because they perceive “meaningfulness” in their learning experience beyond the novelty of a gamified learning system.<br>– Crystal Han-Huei Tsay, Alexander K. Kofinas, Smita K. Trivedi and Yang Yang, Overcoming the Novelty Effect in Online Gamified Learning Systems: An Empirical Evaluation of Student Engagement and Performance

Product managers can, and should, use the positive engagement boost during the novelty period to get users through the Suck Zone to a first meaningful outcome, rather than spending it on exploration that leads nowhere. A Performance Path Map helps to...