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Thinking Big: The 5 Senses (H7108)

15 credits, Level 6

Spring teaching

This module will offer a unique and interdisciplinary perspective on how to design novel (interactive) experiences with products. We will recognise the rich potential of the human senses (vision, hearing, touch, taste and smell) for designing the interaction with the product exploiting and creating novel experiences based on specific design briefs (eg the brief for the 1st edition focuses on ‘Spatial Design for Food Experiences’ – engaging you in the design of physical objects involved in the experience of eating, such as cutlery, plates, tables and rooms, in restaurants vs the home).

To cover the interdisciplinary perspective, the module will invite guest lecturers, experts in their field, in order to ensure a broad perspective on the human senses and their relevance for product design emphasising multisensory experience design. You will obtain a variety of skills including ideation techniques in-situ (eg contextual enquiries, situated bodystorming), user research methods (eg ethnographic methods), and video production skills for professional design presentations.

The main goals of the module are:

• confront you with a real world design problem
• apply experience-centred design methodology
• exploit the opportunities to design for the five senses individually and combinations of them to enhance people’s experiences with products and their environment
• learn how to best communicate your design solutions to stakeholders, especially fostering your presentation skills through the use of digital media (eg video production).

Contact hours and workload

This module is approximately 150 hours of work. This breaks down into about 80 hours of contact time and about 70 hours of independent study. The University may make minor variations to the contact hours for operational reasons, including timetabling requirements.

We regularly review our modules to incorporate student feedback, staff expertise, as well as the latest research and teaching methodology. We’re planning to run these modules in the academic year 2024/25. However, there may be changes to these modules in response to feedback, staff availability, student demand or updates to our curriculum.

We’ll make sure to let you know of any material changes to modules at the earliest opportunity.