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n this article, we contrast the "sales cycle" and related models with the "experience cycle" model. The sales cycle model is a traditional tool in business. The sales cycle frames the producer-customer relationship from the producer's point of view and aims to funnel potential customers to a transaction. The experience cycle is a new tool, synthesizing and giving form to a broader, more holistic approach being taken by growing numbers of designers, brand experts, and marketers. The experience cycle frames the producer-customer relationship from the customer's point of view and aims to move well beyond a single transaction to establish a relationship between producer and customer and foster an on-going conversation.

Even in a recession when budgets are tight, people are attracted to positive emotional experiences. They will scrimp on things of less emotional value to be able to splurge on experience that up lift their spirits. They get an emotional ROI and this is remembered.

The Google User Experience team aims to create designs that are useful, fast, simple, engaging, innovative, universal, profitable, beautiful, trustworthy, and personable. Achieving a harmonious balance of these ten principles is a constant challenge. A product that gets the balance right is "Googley" - and will satisfy and delight people all over the world.

More than anything, Google prefers to make design decisions based on what performs well. And as a company, Google cares about being fast, so we want our user experience to be fast. That's not just in terms of front-end latency-how long it takes the page to download-it's also about making people use their computers more efficiently. A lot of our design decisions are really driven by cognitive psychology research that shows that, say, people online read black text against a white background much faster than white against black, or that sans serif fonts are more easily read than serif fonts online.

So what exactly is user research like at YouTube? Sometimes it means letting users design their ideal experience. For example, last year we used a method called FIDO (first utilized by Fidelity Investments) where we cut out different elements of various video sites, stuck them on magnets, and had users arrange their ideal organization of the elements (see below for an example). Other times we use a more standard research method called a usability study, which entails seeing whether a user can or can't complete certain standard site tasks in a usability lab.

So what exactly is user research like at YouTube? Sometimes it means letting users design their ideal experience. For example, last year we used a method called FIDO (first utilized by Fidelity Investments) where we cut out different elements of various video sites, stuck them on magnets, and had users arrange their ideal organization of the elements (see below for an example). Other times we use a more standard research method called a usability study, which entails seeing whether a user can or can't complete certain standard site tasks in a usability lab.

. Our User Experience Research team has found that people evaluate the search results page so quickly that they make most of their decisions unconsciously. To help us get some insight into this split-second decision-making process, we use eye-tracking equipment in our usability labs. This lets us see how our study participants scan the search results page, and is the next best thing to actually being able to read their minds.

Robot and virtual pets are beginning to replace children's interactions with biologically live pets," said Ruckert. "The larger concern is that technological nature will shift the baseline of what people perceive as the full human experience of nature, and that it will contribute to what we call environmental generational amnesia.

aesthetics, when misused, can severely diminish the quality of experience

In the near future, I believe that you'll be able to get an advanced degree in Business Design. Some programs like the d.school (a formative experience for me) and Rotman are playing with this idea, but I don't think these programs really nail it yet.

Veltkamp's research shows that, without being aware of it, besides being motivated by influences from our surroundings, the way in which we perceive the world around us can change. Earlier research had shown that people perceive objects of worth to be larger than objects that are worthless. Veltkamp's research demonstrates that it is not so much the actual worth of the objects which is important but the motivational worth; if an object is relevant for attaining your goals then you will perceive it to be bigger than it actually is. In one of Veltkamp's experiments, glasses of water were estimated to be bigger, if the participants had not had a drink for some time.

In my experience, a common misperception of the evaluation of content quality is that its scope is limited to the correction of typos and grammatical errors. Correcting spelling and grammar only scratches the surface. To truly consider content quality, we need to examine its quality along several dimensions. Consequently, the content quality checklists that follow cover everything from usefulness to voice to accuracy.

Companies already recognize the importance of "voice" and style in manifesting their brand through marketing communications and other messaging. As they think about delivering great customer experiences, we show them how they need a component analogous to voice for how they interact with their customers.

Design a pipeline system where the best ideas rise quickly to the top and form the burnt sugar crust your team is going to crack through. You want to taste the sweet stuff underneath. So be ruthless! Let all of the other ideas-even the decent ones-fall away. Be flexible and take comfort: what might seem as wasted energy goes right back into your system as learned experience and improves the new ideas piping in.

With a marketing person, 90 percent of the time is spent trying to do everything to shape the buying decision," said Earl Powell, director of the Design Management Institute, a forum for industrial designers and the businesses that use them. Designers are "more committed to the user experience. That experiential component has an emotional resonance: It sticks

The study raises questions about the emotional cost - particularly for the developing brain - of heavy reliance on a rapid stream of news snippets obtained through television, online feeds or social networks such as Twitter. "If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people's psychological states and that would have implications for your morality,"

There are three key areas to consider in design and benchmarking when undertaking such a substantial airport redevelopment project. First, we considered our passengers and how we engineered their journey through the airport. Taking into account everything from walking times to way-finding and immigration, our airport design has ensured the optimal journey.'