I just love this product!: looking into wow products, from analysis to heuristics

Increasingly products need to be 'cool', 'wow', fun, rather than merely being 'functional' in order to appeal to consumers. Product innovation then turns into not only working out how to apply technologies to realize some useful product function, but also in how to create an appealing and alluring experience. The core question one would like to see answered already early on in the development process is, of course, how we can make sure that the final product is going to be fun, pleasurable, appealing (in addition to being functional and usable). However, when looking at the literature, no real, concrete, hands-on answers are popping up yet. On the other hand, in industry and academia much tacit knowledge and experience must exist, about what worked before and what not. Analyzing systematically successful product introductions, tapping into that tacit knowledge, may help to derive heuristics that can support new product and service development, and aid in a better understanding of this elusive concept.