Long is boring, short is in effective !!

Seth says it much better !

Seth's Blog: Once more, but slowly

The paradox is that the long stuff gets skipped. The long stuff gets ignored. Short books sell better, short commercials get more viewers. So repetition becomes essential.

Isn't that a struggle for every artist, marketing guy, teacher ....

Attention is very scarce commodity, best poetry is one which makes a statement within that few moments of available attention from the reader /viewer.

My Design for experience video in vsocial

Design for Human experience - my video

Browser design - a diary of my online experiences

Why can't my browser help me create such diaries ?

Capture life, re-imagine it ...

impressions, clips, notes, observations, friends, opinions, .....

Why are browsers not designed as a book ?

Fantastic presentation - great experience

OSCON 2005 Keynote - Identity 2.0

A fantastic presentation style.

It again teaches that presentations need to tell a story in a style to provide an interesting experience. Almost to a point that what is being said is not so much relevant. (which anyways is not for many of the audience).

Seth's Blog: What consumers want

Good experience is what we all want from every product and service. Experience - impact on me - drives my buying behavior. It is a myth to think experience as a 'luxury' parameter.

So I would think good experience should be one more element to what seth has listed. Seth's Blog: What consumers want

You can insert this blog into your web page / blog

In case you like what I write here, and would like to put it on your website, please feel free to do so.

Just leave me a email at madhutemp@gmail.com

Get Your Code Here

Google video - What I wish it had

Google video is a great tool. However I think it is still at "friend"

level of relationship with the reader.

Below are few examples I imagined, that could make it to "family" level

.

1. Rating filter (PG, G, PG 13 etc)
2. XML to subscribe to the source
3. Opinions
4. Tagging
5. Saving (Which I think has been rolled by Google !!)

Can someone please inform Google !!

Parameters for deeper Human experience - orbits !!

click to see clearer

Friendly product !! - what it takes to create one

For products and services to be friendly, I suggest to do the same things that we do to be a friend with someone.

Below are my top parameters for being friendly.

Friendly parameters

Interactive - Interacts with me
No hassle - He /she is nice to me
Positive feeling - I feel happy to be with
Share environment - We have lots of common things to talk about
Playful - we play together
Safe - Feels safe with him/her
24x7 availability - Available anytime I want
Buddy connections - Connects me to other interesting friends
Supportive - I can reach out in need
Dependable - I can depend on him/her

We are very good at knowing a friendly face. Check this out ... Which of the below looks friendly to you. Bookmark each one with an appropriate (Friendly or Unfriendly) tag (del.icio.us or any other). If you tell me where you bookmarked, I can publish our collective opinion.

Which one is the friendly face ??

(I don't mean who is actually friendly or unfriendly, it is just the feeling from these photographs)

While researching for these pics, I figured that it is very easy to search for a friendly face by typing friend, friendly tags in flickr. But how does one find 'unfriendly' pics. There were very few with that tag and those were, were not impressive. "So dumb !!" you must be saying, "no one likes to take pictures of unfriendly faces !"

Which products generate friendly feeling even before we buy them ?

No one like unfriendly products - dumb !!

How to gain customers trust

What should the business leaders do to get into the 'family' orbit of the customer's experience levels.

Emotion - Make the customer laugh

Check how a business program on radio does it. I love the way Kai ryssdal anchors 'marketplace'[mp3] an american NPR radio program.
Another gem is this program on car repair. How can anyone talk about car repair and generate so much fun. My favorite - cartalk on NPR.

Involve Music - Best way to reach hearts

iPod had many good things going for it. Best of all (I think) is that it is a platform of music. Naturally people connect emotionally to it.
Note the way movies use background music to involve the viewer at even deeper levels.

and

Know your customer's other family members
Integrate your product into users lifestyle
Integrate your product into users home environment
Make your product a gateway to other rich experiential environments for the user
Guide the user in their life
Become an art for the user to admire

Any examples that you have ... or maybe some other parameters !!

How to become a 'family' member of the customer

While most of the businesses generate "I like it"

feeling. And many also reach to "is My friend"

status.

But it is very difficult to become a 'family member' of the customer, user, reader ...

If a stranger wants to become part of our family and gain our trust, what do we look for in him /her.

Below are 10 reasons we trust

someone.

Because that person :

won't harm us
would protect us
has never failed us
is part of our family
we compete with, but never at cost of our relationship
guides us
is one we respect
has cried in our grief
we have an emotional bond
is present in all my main life events

What can businesses learn from this. I want to explore with examples, what some businesses are doing to gain customer trust. I would also be looking at Walmart's of the world to analyse what they could be doing to get our trust and not just friendship.

Why apple doesn't sell preloaded iPods

"Other recommendations for you... by Apple"

When I checked out an iPod, I didn't see any option to preload it.

Wouldn't that be a great value add. It would also help if they can get discounts on preloaded albums. Maybe they should start -

'Bryan Adams iPod Shuffle' - Has all the albums of Bryan adams
'U2 iPod' - all the albums of U2
'Jazz iPod' - top 100 Jazz music songs
.... etc

This would add to the emotional impact on the user experience. Family orbit of AIEUO !!

Want to engrave your iPod

WOW !!! these people understand the human experience so well.

This is best way to personalize it. Emotional impact of ones own name is so high. This helps ipod to become what I call the Self-extension orbit of Human experience.

This is real. You know if you bought an iPod.

iPod with a Microphone

iPod with a Microphone !

It is so helpful in being a partner. It helps record my meetings. iPod is no more my entertainment device. It is a life partner.

That's what I call a Lover orbit of human experience.

[ obviously it is my wish not a reality ]

What makes a blog, Great !! - a human experience view

“Aieuo” 5 orbits of human experience. (background)

How can one provide the best human experience to the blog reader. It is not just how many you connect with, but also how deep is your relationship with them.

All of us understand what a star, a friend, a family,a lover mean to us.
Can a blog become part of these human orbits ?

Here is what I think are the characters of a blog that can help us get into the reader's inner orbits.

A Attractive like a star

Sexier the better . Can someone notice it from far. Great templates, fonts, styles etc.
- Draw a toon (click this to see great example), add a pic. Anything that ads to the visual drama.
- Shout !! one liners – Put interesting title, which can fit the RSS readers
- Timeout !! attention lost.. – who reads for >5 min on a post. Short readable post.
- A guide to blog design

I Interactive like a friend

- “Please talk to me” – Comments, corrections, advice… anything

- Participate in bigger discussion. Links to other places. See how this master does it.

- So far am I walking the talk ? Maybe I don’t know how to ask questions. But Qs are great triggers of conversations.

- World is boring … promote childlike playful nature …But don’t overdo.

E Emotional like a family member

√ Tell stories passionately. Humans are not computers absorbing facts. Audio, video …??
√ Trust worthy. I am not selling anything. I have an idea to share.
√ Liars should be banned. Truthfulness is a big virtue.
√ Organized thoughts are valuable. Theme based, not random runts.
√ RSS – Great tool for long term relationships with the reader.

U Understanding like a lover

Connect with the human inside. Desires, ambitions …et al.
Motivate, make life more positive.
Invite to share the platform. Co Author with the user.
Skype invite .. invite to have one-one chat.

O Own-able become part of the user’s identify

The ultimate experience is when users can extend themselves through you. Please quote me if you like. Maybe my cartoon is useful. Or this one page for sharing with friends. … if you like them, you are welcome. Now that I have your attention, I can just chat freely. I hope we can together make better human experiences. By sharing my ideas, I hope it helps someone change the world.

Do you have examples that fits this world view ? Pls. feel free to put in comments.

AIEUO are not just string of jumbled vowels. I think every aspect of our living can be analysed, designed and lived through this. I intend to explore this further in my blogs here. I look forward to my friends to join me in this journey.

Parameters of Human Experience

Parameters for experience

Visual - How it looks
Functional - How smoothly it functions
Interactive - How much it connects through interaction
Emotional - How much it generate emotions, deeper impacts
Relationship - How it helps in relating to others
Life style - Impact on the life style.

Experience economy is not just customer experiences. Owner /Shareholder, Worker /employee and Customer /user all are influenced by these.

This needs to be used for designing, operating and life styles.

Circles of Influence on Human Experience

We get experiences from other humans as well as non-humans (life forms and non-life).

A human to human relationship is much more matured and understood concept than human to object relationship. In order to design objects that would be good for humans, a model of human to human relationships could be a guide.

Learning from Human Relationships

Outside the orbits - Attractive (model, beautiful person) - see once in a while; sensory feel - visual, audio ...;

Friends orbit - Interacting - talk to fewtimes in a week; interactive, two-way communication

Family orbit - Relation - Emotional bonding;part of bigger group, we-are-together feeling

Lover orbit - Love - partner; grows, lives together

Self extension - part of - identification, extension of self

Products can be designed to go deeper in to the orbits. Closer to the human, more valueable it is. Sometimes, a product starts at the higher orbits and goes deeper with time. While it is also feasible that a product starts at a deeper level at the beginning.

''What can be done to deepen the product relationship with the human users. ''

hexperience

A single google interface for email + chat

Few days back I wrote about need for a single interface for email and chat
and google is coming out with Gmail + gtalk WOW !!! It surely feels good.

Why is early retirement not the ideal goal of life

A early rich retiree should be the happiest of all. He doesn't have to work. He has all the money he needs. He can do what he likes (as long as it is legal and appropriate).

We all are stuck in web of relationships and needs.
You have responsibilities towards yourself, kids, spouse, family, society ...
Your body(and mind) needs food, clothes, shelter, entertainment...

Why are you here? Because your parents decided to have you. While it is very tempting to investigate any other reason for your existence, this might be the only real reason.

No there must be some bigger reason
If you believe in God, he intended to create earth and all the life on it. With all the related philosophical reasoning. If you don't want to believe, it might be that life happened and as a series of cause and effects you arrived.

Anyways now that you are alive, is there a script you need to follow? ("What should I do in life").

There might not be anything that one "has-to" do. It is just that you are part of this universe with planets, life et al. There is no "perfect" reason for existence. Though there are million reasons that humans came up with. You can either agree with one or many of those reasons (religions !) or come-out with own reason or live with a possibility that there is no big reason for existence.

First in the line of responsibilities is yourself. Then comes kids, spouse, family, society, life, universe etc.
For yourself you need to keep yourself alive, entertained, growing, painfree, happy...At the same time you are to address other responsibilities.

Somewhere embedded in all this is your job.

Job is just a part of life (with pains and pleasures). Job contributes to both pain & pleasure. Often only the 'job' contributes to much of pleasure (and pain). So in a sense job makes you alive (active).

You can choose to become inactive (retired) or change the activity beyond (and possibly in place of) job.

While no one really dictates that you be alive, the best thing for you, family, society, universe ...is that you be alive. As long and as much as possible.

So retirement is not ideal goal, finding ways to be fully alive is. Maybe that is "Nirvana".

Design experiences