Beyond sight: what multisensory design can achieve

A museum as a laboratory of perception

In 2018, Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum, presented design that goes beyond the eye in ‘The Senses: Design Beyond Vision’. The exhibition brought together more than 65 projects; numerous objects and installations could be touched, heard or smelt. These included tactile maps and applications that translate sound into vibrations that can be felt. The crucial shift in perspective lay not in spectacular effects, but in acknowledging different ways of accessing the world. A map need not function exclusively visually, and an acoustic signal can also be experienced physically. The exhibition treated such possibilities both as design experiments and as practical solutions. In doing so, it fundamentally challenged the widespread equation of design with visible form.

More senses do not automatically mean more access

An additional sensory layer can make information easier to understand, but can also create new barriers. A scent is not pleasant for everyone, a sound is not helpful for everyone, and a touchable surface is not within everyone's reach. A multisensory approach therefore does not imply an obligation to keep increasing stimulation. The more interesting question is whether information becomes accessible through different routes that people can choose as independently as possible. A tactile map, for example, benefits from a supplementary description, not from simply adding arbitrary sounds. The past exhibition is a starting point for reflection here, not a universal instruction manual. For present-day projects, it is advisable to examine actual situations of use and involve people with different ways of perceiving early on, rather than guessing their needs afterwards.

Interpretation must keep pace too

The accompanying report from Cooper Hewitt Labs describes a revealing difficulty: touchable exhibits alone did not make the information about them accessible. The museum therefore worked on digital approaches to interpretation and adaptable large-print resources. Object labelling thus became a design task in its own right. This connection is as important for exhibitions as it is for product development: an accessible object becomes less useful if its instructions cannot be read or its function understood. Multisensory design should therefore consider the object, orientation and explanation together. Genuine choices emerge for visitors only when consideration is given not just to the interesting part of a presentation, but also to its everyday use. The route to the experience is already part of the experience.

Keep exploring

• Bauhaus Is More Than a Look: Learning Through Materials and Experiment
• Biomimicry: Learning from Nature, Not Just Mimicking Its Forms
• Longevity Is More Than Timelessness: What Makes Good Design Endure