Section banner indicating the start of a new section. On the right, 7 icons depict the senses: a heart and brain, an eye, a hand, an ear, a nost, a mouth, and an arrow (movement). Chapter 7 banner is orange with all icons highlighted.

7.2 Multisensory Awareness and Design

We go through our days, moment by moment responding to different stimuli that keep our brains and nervous systems up-to-date. With every incoming sensory event, we automatically process the stimuli by interpreting, understanding, and deciding how or if we should respond in a particular way (Park & Alderman, 2018). This step-by-step processing of incoming sensory stimuli is part of everyday life. Would you react differently to a barking dog charging at you than to a gentle dog snuggling against your leg? You may either jump out of the way of the barking dog or enjoy petting the gentle dog. In either case, the dog’s behaviour provides multisensory stimulation, as do most events in our surroundings, and each situation prompts a different response that requires us to assess it before taking action.

Scale with three circles (one at the beginning of the line, one in the middle, and one on the end). The first circle is blue and the word Sense. The second circle is pink and the words Understand and Decide. The third circle is yellow and the word Act. Above the scale is a brown dog with black spots barking. Two blue circles are being pointed out of the dog - one has an eye and the other an ear. Beside the dog is a man in a green sweater and grey pants flinching and turning away from the dog. His right knee has a yellow circle pointing out with and arrow pointing to the right. There is a pink circle being pointed towards him with a brain inside and electric symbols coming out. Below the scale is the same dog, except sitting down and holding up a front paw. The same blue circles are being pointed out. The same man, except kneeing down with his arms out towards the dog. The yellow circle has an arrow pointing to the left and slightly down, towards the dog. The pink circle has a smily face, and there is a blue circle pointing out of his arm with a hand inside.

Responding to sensory stimulation

According to Park & Alderman (2018), the way we perceive all sensory stimulation can be organized into three categories:

  1. Electromagnetic stimulation that requires physiological reactions, such as pulling our hands out of the way when we see and feel heated electrical elements (relating to vision and touch).
  2. Mechanical stimulation that involves tensile, compressive, or shearing interactions between physical things that require us to react, such as when we exert pressure to remain upright while windsurfing (relating to sound and touch).
  3. Chemical stimulation that involves interactions among chemicals, such as when we use toothpaste to clean our teeth (relating to smell and taste).

Categories of sensory stimulation

With this awareness, designers can integrate layers of multisensory design features into products, services, or environments that support our abilities to process and react to different kinds of stimuli (Schifferstein & Spence, 2009, Park & Alderman, 2018). For example, think about what happens when you are driving and hear a siren. While driving, you receive concurrent multisensory stimuli providing important information about your surroundings. Perhaps you look at the side and rear-view mirrors and see a fire engine approaching with lights flashing. Usually, this triggers your responsive processes into action. You may quickly pull over or stop to let the fire engine pass. The flashing lights on the firetruck and in the mirrors, the noisy siren, the positioning of the car windows, the rotating steering wheel, the moveable turn signals, the gas pedal, and the brake all support your ability to act appropriately and notify other drivers of your immediate intentions. These sensory electromagnetic (sirens, flashing lights) and mechanical (steering wheel and gas pedal resistance) stimuli are holistically designed to provide you with the opportunity to react appropriately to the context of the situation, as seen below.

Car side mirror where a firetruck can be seen. 3 red electric symbols coming out of truck. Above mirror in red text is WEEOO, and 2 blue circles pointing to the mirror. The one on the left has an eye symbol, and the one on the right has an ear. Beside is a person driving a car. There is a pink circle with a brain inside pointing to the person. 3 pink electric symbols are above the circle. Above view of a street. In the left lane is a firetruck with 3 red electric symbols coming out. On the right lane, and slightly pulled over is a blue car with a yellow circle pointing to it. There is a yellow arrow pointing right inside. Below the images is a line with 3 circles. On the left end is a blue circle with the word Sense, in the middle is a pink circle with the words Understand and Decide, and on the right end is a yellow circle with the word Act. Under the line, the 3 images are repeated with slight changes. The firetruck can be seen in the mirror, but it is following behind and doesn't have sirens on. There is only the circle with the eye. The image of the person driving is the same, minus the electric symbols coming out of the circle. The final image the firetruck is following behind the blue care. And the circle from the car has an arrow pointing straight.

Cognitive and MultiSensory Responses to Layers of Stimuli while driving

We are learning how to modify design properties to influence the perceived sensory messages that stimulate memories, sensory and motor skills, reflexes, and attention (Schifferstein & Hekkert, 2009, Schifferstein & Spence, 2009; Park & Alderman, 2018). As a result, our devices are changing quickly, with new or more suitable features to improve our quality of life. For example, phone designs continue to evolve by incorporating multisensory modifications into how the devices look, feel, sound, and function. Each upgraded version affects how you listen, hold, and carry the device, physically engage with its interactive features, and even where you can most comfortably use it (in the sun or shade, in noisy or quiet surroundings). All the sensory information we receive when interacting with our products affects our perception, cognition, experience, and behaviour. For example, today many persons with disabilities are experiencing newfound independence through a variety of multisensory and accessible features that were only a dream a decade ago!

A timeline shows the evolution of a phone with 3 examples. On the bottom, a black arrow points to the right with the text: 1920s on the left, 1970s in the middle, and 2000s on the right. Above 1920s is a black and gold vintage rotary phone with the following text above the phone. Visual appeal, tactile, auditory, and analog kinetic feedback. Above 1970s is a black landline phone with the following text. New digital features and auditory feedback, cordless simple design. Above 2000s is a white smart phone with following text. Wide variety of customizable sensory features, modern aesthetics, portable design, haptic feedback.

Evolution of the phone

Did you know that phones also have a significant cultural impact on us? That they have changed how we live? As you know, our phones are no longer solely communication devices. They organize details about friends, family, and events that effectively replace our need to remember information – by capturing and storing text, images, music, and videos. Each of us can customize our phones to our personal sensory preferences, like ring tones or vibrations when a call or message arrives. Most of us, to various degrees, depend on these features. Indeed, we are even attached to our phones in multisensory ways that often define our personalities, by leveraging design and emotion concepts like ideo- and socio-pleasure, as discussed in Chapter 1.

A grey bowl with a rice dish inside sits on a table. A person is taking a photo of the food with a white smart phone.

Changing cultural impacts: Capturing our experiences with our phones

Park & Alderman (2018) believe that people, places, and things become a part of our unique everyday worldview because of our sensory experiences with them – for many of us, seeing, touching, and interacting with something makes it real. In other words, physical evidence builds trust in products, brands, and relationships. That is why rich, multisensory experiences provide more opportunities for engagement.

From lipstick to bicycles, designers incorporate layers of sensory features that go well beyond how a product looks and feels. Consider how the auditory click of a deodorant stick opening and closing provides assuring feedback that the deodorant will remain inside a cleverly designed and easy-to-use container – rich in colour, form, and function. In the design of bicycles, design teams optimize materials and mechanical actions to maximize the gentle swishing sounds of smooth bicycle movements in the kinetic performance of the brakes, wheels, and gears, the tactile comfort of the seat, and the colourful surface finishes and to minimize the tactile vibrations through the handlebars (steel vibrates less than aluminum). All of these features contribute to a product’s multisensory aesthetics.

Layers of multisensory features across products

 

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Sense-It!: Insights into Multisensory Design Copyright © 2023 by Lois Frankel, PhD & the Sense-It! Team is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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