Designing for the Senses Recap

The story of a WSSW workshop on experience design went.

From Grand Junction to Durango, and a trip down memory lane.

I have an old Toyota Tacoma. An ‘04. Still has a tape deck in it, with one of those adapters that connects to my iPhone.

It works. Usually.

The morning I drove down to Durango for Startup Week, it didn’t. I had a podcast all lined up for the drive. So I dug out the old burnt CDs that have been sitting in the back of my truck forever.

Frustrated at first. Then I thought, you know what? I wanna listen to Funeral for a Friend.

Sound. One of those powerful senses we have that takes us back to different times in our lives.

Which was kind of perfect, because that was the whole point of the workshop I was driving down to give. It was called “What Does Your Brand Smell Like?” So thanks to everyone who was curious enough, maybe courageous enough, to show up to a session with a title as head-scratching as that.

The idea underneath it is something I believe pretty deeply. We as humans are experiential creatures. We move through the world with our senses, and those senses create memories that shape who we are. (I wrote more about that here: link)

I wanted to be upfront with the room. This is a thought experiment. This is not to say we have the answers to all the questions. It’s just a way of thinking about your brand through a different perspective, the perspective being our senses.

So everyone got a handout. Five questions. Five senses. What does your brand look like, smell like, sound like, feel like, taste like?

Truly no wrong answers.

Then we started hearing them out loud.

One guy runs a coworking space and accelerator. He went down his sheet. Look: techie, innovation, community. Sound: that busy coworking buzz, people collaborating, sharing conversations, ideas, pitches. Feel: keyboards and whiteboards. Taste: coffee and donuts.

And smell?

“Well, I’m always the first one in the office. Right after they clean. So it smells very clean. Smells like an office.”

I love that answer. It’s honest.

And it’s the most common thing that happens with this exercise. He described what his brand smells like right now. The question underneath is, what do you want it to smell like?

So the room started tossing ideas around. A diffuser, some kind of scent that’s distinctly his space when you walk in. Let the little kitchen area keep that coffee smell. Grocery stores have been doing this for years, pumping the bakery smell right by the doors.

None of this is crazy new stuff. People have been attaching moments and senses to what they want their audience to experience for a long time.

Then there was someone launching an outdoor product that very week. Bags that protect your ski and snowboard gear on the way to the mountain. They grew up skiing, it was a family thing.

“Am I passionate about ski and snowboard bags? Not really. But I’m super passionate about getting families out.”

Smell: fresh air, snow, coffee, breakfast burritos. Sound: road noise, edges on fresh snow, clicking into your bindings, a lot of woo. Feel: gritty excitement, taking a deep breath, exhilaration, feeling grounded. Taste? Fresh air.

That one didn’t need a reframe. The answers already were the brand.

My bag protects your gear and gets you to the mountain for that first taste of fresh air in the morning. That’s the whole story right there.

Now, I’m not saying you have to go out there and make a silly jingle, or come up with some kind of smell for your tech company.

You could come to this conclusion and say, you know what? I don’t need to have a smell. But at least you thought it through. Versus leaving it on the table and wondering, maybe there’s something I could have said through the smell.

And those questions, yeah, they’re a little bit weird. Right?

But when you start asking them, you start coming up with ways.

So here’s one to take with you. What does your brand smell like right now? And what do you want it to smell like?

Just have fun. The questions are weird.

And this is experience design.