Zugot™The research behind Zugot Project
Every design decision in Zugot Project — from the lack of photos in the date room to the length of the virtual date itself — comes from a specific academic study, not intuition. Here's the full story: the problem the research identified, how it was tested, and what it found.
The problem: search goods vs. experience goods
Economics draws a distinction between two kinds of products. A search good — like a camera — can be evaluated from a spec sheet, with no need to experience it first. An experience good — like a film or a restaurant — can only be evaluated by actually experiencing it. Classic dating sites are built as if people were search goods: filter by age, height, city and income, and get a ranked list. The study Zugot Project is built on argues that this is a basic mistake — people are unmistakably an experience good, and no combination of form fields predicts whether there will be chemistry.
The study: Frost, Chance, Norton & Ariely (2008)
People Are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates, published in the Journal of Interactive Marketing by Jeff Frost, Zoë Chance, Michael Norton and Dan Ariely, tested this idea directly. Instead of letting participants choose potential partners from a profile alone, the study gave them a virtual date first: two participants represented as colored circles in a shared art gallery, wandering it together, talking in real time when close to each other — without ever seeing a photo of one another. The artworks on the walls served as a natural conversation starter, much like an actual date at a museum.
What it found
The core finding: pairs who went through this shared experience before meeting in person liked each other more at the face-to-face meeting, compared to pairs who relied on a profile alone. In other words — a short, shared experience, without photos and without first-date pressure, predicts chemistry better than any combination of form fields. That is exactly why filtering by appearance too early doesn't just fail to help — it screens out matches that could have worked.
How this became actual decisions in Zugot Project
Every part of the Zugot Project virtual date comes directly from the study: the shared gallery and the colored circles — to reproduce the exact conditions under which the research measured a better outcome. No photos in the room — to prevent the early judgment the research identifies as the problem. A capped date length with a separate rating afterward — to keep the experience short, low-commitment, and measurable. And revealing photos and contact details only after two separate "yes" answers — so a decision about an actual meeting comes only after chemistry already exists, not before.
Source: Frost, J., Chance, Z., Norton, M. I., & Ariely, D. (2008). People Are Experience Goods: Improving Online Dating with Virtual Dates. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 22(1), 51–61.
Ready to try?
Registration is short, and the first date starts in the gallery — not in a list of profiles.