“The average human looks without seeing, listens without hearing, moves without physical awareness, inhales without awareness of odor or fragrance, and talks without thinking”, said Leonardo da Vinci. Is this true of you, too? Recently, I’ve noticed that more and more, we are asked if Thinkergy has techniques centered on the five human senses. In response to this need, we have designed three new tools to address this and help our customers open up to the world of sensory innovation and understand why it offers new opportunities.

The five senses

The five senses — seeing, hearing, touching, smelling, and tasting —are the channels that receive, filter and communicate stimuli to the brain. Da Vinci called them ‘ministers of the soul’. In his book BRAND sense, Martin Lindstrom asked people to assess the relative importance of the senses. He found that, “Of the sample surveyed in the BRAND sense study, 37 percent listed sight as the most important sense when evaluating our environment. This was followed by 23 percent listing smell. Touch ranked lowest on the scale. Generally, though, the statistics that emerged showed a very small differential when it came to a sense-by-sense evaluation, leading us to conclude that all five senses are important in any form of communication and life experience.”

The senses’ importance in innovation and design

The five senses have direct links to ancient parts of the human brain. Smells, tastes and pain are wired to the reptilian brain, the oldest part, which regulates basic functions like breathing and heart rate, and also controls automatic responses, like “fight or flight”. The deaf and blind Helen Keller said that, “Smell is a potent wizard that transports us across thousands of miles and all the years we have lived.” A smell, like the taste of a madeleine, can immediately and vividly recall another time and place.

On the other hand, sound and sight are processed in the mammalian brain, which evolved later. Also known as the limbic system, it is where emotion and mood are processed, which is why music, or images, can affect how we feel.

These parts of the human brain are where impulses and value judgments originate. This is why Lindstrom recommended emphasizing all five senses when “moving from 2D to 5D branding”. But sensory design matters in areas other than branding.

Sensory innovation and design

As we become consciously aware of the power of the senses, we can use this to strengthen the appeal and perceived value of our products and our brand. Although sensory focus is not needed for all innovation types, it is relevant to product innovation, service innovation, customer experience design, and brand design:

• Every product, and every package, needs sensory appeal in at least 2 dimensions — sight and touch. For example, Apple was the first to make visually attractive personal computers running visually attractive user interfaces. Steve Jobs went so far as to say: “We made the buttons on the screen look so good you’ll want to lick them.” Apple also focuses on designing packaging that not only looks elegant, but also feels silky smooth, making unpacking their products an enjoyable sensory experience. In some industries, such as food and beverage, product design addresses all the senses. Think of Coca-Cola, for instance, and how it appeals to the five senses.

• All five human senses also need to be considered in service innovation and customer experience design. Think of the sights, noises, touches, smells and tastes you have to endure when flying in economy class, and ask, “How to turn these unpleasant sensations into better ones?”

• Finally, an often-overlooked area for adding sensory value is brand design. Branding usually focuses on the visual dimension, but it can certainly extend to the other senses. The Wall’s ice cream jingle is a strong auditory brand. The feel of a Coke bottle in your hand is successful tactile branding. The smell and taste of McDonald’s french fries and burgers are a great example of olfactory and gustatory branding.

Look at your products, services, and brands. How many senses do they address? How strong is their sensory appeal? How satisfied are you with their sensory design? To strengthen your sensory awareness, and learn what you can do to improve your sensory design and innovation, see the next column in two weeks.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2012. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 16 February 2012.