When we look for inspiration,
we do our research from visual documents such as books, magazines, photography…

How about sound, taste, smell…

Should we also explore our other senses ? Definitely, yes.

Nowadays an industrial designer doesn’t look only at function and performance – but also emotion. Any rational decision we make is driven by emotion.

We’ll address to people’s unconscious mind, and create a product or service in harmony with the user.

Let’s look at few examples of design innovation using the sensory design.

“Sensory design”

| Hearing |

| Crisp of Mineral water bottle |

Did you know that
Sound designers work on the crisp of bottle of mineral water ? Why ? To remind us freshness when we grab the bottle in the shop or before serving yourself a cup. Same for the packet of crispy Potato chips ! Maybe that detail is insignificant to you. I hope you realise that we are surrounded of insignificant signs that influence our act and behaviours.

TIP
Everything has a meaning.
“As a designer be sensitive to human’s behaviour. And you will touch people subconscious.”

| Conversation spy from Potatoe chips ! What ?? |

Did you know that
(Be prepared to be terrified) A conversation can be spied from a Potato chips ! The principle is pretty “simple”. A high speed video collect the vibration on the potato chips from a conversation, and convert/recover these visual vibration to sound.

A bit more explanation: “When sound hits an object, it causes the object to vibrate,” said Abe Davis, an MIT graduate student. An algorithm has been created by Microsoft and Adobe to reconstruct a conversation. We can even know the number of speakers, gender and the identity of the speakers (if some information has been priory given). Click here to see more about the sound recovery from vibration.

A high speed video of the plant is recovering sound.

TIP
“Trend forecasting is your duty.
Allocate some time at browsing new technologies and science discovery. You may merge these innovation to your own project. As a student, feel free to look at innovation patent.“

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| Sound of a closing car door |

BMW 8 Concept

Did you know that
The sound of a car closing door is also meticulously studied ? It tells the user how safe and comfy is the car even before driving it.

TIP
“Give importance to details.
I tempted to say that there is no small innovation. But invisible, yes.”

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Star Wars sound gathering from real life

Star Wars ep III – Revenge of the Sith

Creation of the laser sound of Star Wars – Pew ! Pew !

Did you know that
Sound designers create sound for movies extracting them from real life. Click to see more about how Star Wars sound designers gathered and created the sounds !

TIP
”In design, mix your emotion with your imagination.”

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| Speed of music in supermarket |

Dancing ballerina in Supermarket

Did you know that
Music in Supermarket influence customer mood and speed. Slow music retain the customer longer. Note that classical music tend to make them buying more expensive things.

TIP
”Marketing for mass market is a huge source of inspiration for designers.*”

• In marketing, some application may be on the edge of ethics (personal opinion). It’s important to dissociate the innovation or technology to its application.

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| Crisp of fresh French bread |

Did you know that
French people squeeze lightly there bread to know if it’s fresh or not. Ok, its not an innovation, but this is just a small reminder than even the simple things has a meaning. Human’s habits, and cultural behaviour are where a designer can dig precious inspiration. (That’s one of the reason why Pixar’s movies can make such great movies)

| Touch |

| Sense of luxury |

Did you know that
Even though a luxury perfume has a cap made of cheap plastic, some artificial weight is added in to increase the feel of quality and luxury (antique bottle of perfume was made of “heavy” glass).

The touch sense is used within multiple parameters such as

• the surface whether is smooth or grainy
• the temperature
• the pressure
• soft or hard
• sticky or slippery
• vibrating or not
• …
  

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| Smell |
| Micro capsule of scent thrown on the floor to attract customers |

Did you know that
Some bakeries in shopping mall spread micro capsule of perfume on the floor – in front of the shop ? Why ? The micro capsule explode when customers walk in the gallery. Some may be more attracted to stop at the bakery.

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Some brands use scents diffuser to:

• Increase the sell of a product (Even for washing machine where that specific shop area may smell the sea)
• Associate a scent to a brand
• Give a better experience to customers, hotels, resort, spa…

“When you think about it, in the world of product promotion, advertising and branding, everything is about sight and sound (…) No one has really been tapping into smell, and the sense of smell is directly hardwired into your brain.” Steven Semoff, the acting co-president of the Scent Marketing Institute. Read more at: The smell of commerce: How companies use scents to sell their products.

Note that a French company who started this concept years ago, hired a luxury perfume creator. That illustrate how a talent can apply his skills in different domains.

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| Mercedes room scent, the smell of luxury |

Sabine Engelhardt, Tuturologist in “Social and Technological Research”.

Mercedes created the first Automotive room scent with: the Perfume atomizer for the S-Class. Different mood are available such as:

• Downtown: floriental, musk, fruity
• Nightlife: woody, oriental, ambered
• Sports: green, flowery, cirtus
• Freeside: cirtus, flowery, tea

Perfume atomizer for the S-Class – Mercedes

Air balance for the interior vehicle

At the Google Science Fair, Guillaume Roland, 17 from France – had the idea of creating an alarm clock that wake people up with scent instead of a buzz: an Olfactory Alarm clock. Guillaume says that Peppermint scent woke up 100% people within 2 minutes.

Regular alarm clock make us grumpy.

Our day doesn’t start great and influence the whole day mood.

With Sensorwake, we can wake up with great and enjoyable scents – Guillaume Roland

• Mint
• Hot croissant
• Candy
• Money (Really ?!!)
• …

The Sensorwake is not yet available. But you can see more at Sensorwake.com.

TIP
“Stimulate people sense and memory.”

| Sight |

| Ugly design for a better design |

Velib’ – Rental cycle in Paris

Did you know that
The brief for the designer team in charge of the design of the Velib (Public cycle for rent) was to make it: “Ugly”. It aims to prevent theft.

| Retro reference for futuristic design |

Sci-fi movies such as Star wars, Oblivion play with your visual memory. using retro references for the design of futuristic weapon or Spaceship. The viewer has an INSTANT recognition that a futuristic weapon is actually a weapon. If every single object or vehicle came to be too farfetched from reality, the viewer of the movie may “be lost”. To appreciate the movie, futuristic and innovative ok, but not 100% new.

TIP
“Cherish the past to innovate better.”

Taste

| Artificial flavour |

Did you know that
Most of syrup you find in supermarket are synthetic ? It means that if your syrup has a strawberry flavour, there is zero strawberry inside. It’s all about reproducing the taste from assembling molecules.

What id a 3D printer could assemble these molecules for Food 3D printing ? Terrifying right ?

A technology is by default pretty neutral.
As a designer, we believe at creating a better world.
Don’t aim to manipulate, enhance people experience.

Tell us some interesting case of design that also use Sensory design. 🙂