Dressing the Brand:
The link between the psychology of touch and the tactile nature of textiles in consumer experiences
ASK YOURSELF
Is interactivity welcomed? Do we live in a touch-starved society? Can ‘virtual’ touch interaction ever be a substitute for real touch? What are designers doing to improve the quality of how we experience touch? Can our sense of touch help us develop stronger emotional and social relationships As a designer, have you ever explored the social, scientific, emotional and personal aspects of how people relate through touch? If you believe this is a relevant discussion then proceed to form your own opinion, but let us help
The aspect of interactivity in today’s design community is not a new phenomenon, but what is new in consumer experiences is the impact that the 5 senses play in evoking a response or connection to a product or Brand personality. The world of brand experience has long employed tactics to stimulate the general public visually. It has been our primary form of delivery sense the dawn of advertising. What has changed over the years is the savvy behavior of the public. They are much smart, faster, and methodical in the decisions on everyday products and the brands that support them. Creating an emotional lasting connection is the holy grail of Brand loyalty. Brand marketers are employing over the top measures to dress their brands, and stays in the heart and mind of the consumer. Science would suggested that keeping the approach simple and honest using one of the most primal of senses, touch, can help ensure a healthy brand relationship with the consumer. One of the vehicles that can deliver this connention is the use of textiles and materials because of the strong memorable connection that can be sustained through interaction. Touch is one of the most interesting yet under estimated powers of perception the human body has to communicate with. For years studies have been conducted on this front in the hope of substituting artificial stimuli in place of real human interaction, however the convergence of technology and advancements in mechanics, electronics and informatics have not scratched the surface of a substitute for the power of human touch. Testing on the measurement of perceptions has been going on since the later half of the 19th century with much discovered and analyzed scientist have been crafting standards for the development of a vocabulary for profiling textiles and opening the door on how humans articulate interaction through physical contact. The most common front that this interaction takes place is in the retail world, especially the world of clothing and the design of apparel. The most important considerations in apparel products that affects a consumer’s decision-making process to purchase is the tactile property of the item. One can draw the conclusion that the consumer must engage the product to confirm what the visual sense is telling the brain. People can’t help themselves when shopping, they have to touch the product as part of the overall experience. So if touch influences purchasing it is safe to suggest that textile choice plays a huge influential role in buying. It can be witnessed in a variety of industries that today’s brands are trying to be hyper-sensitive to all aspect of the 5 senses as they relate to consumer contact. Textiles offer the most basic of interactive components that brands can harness to create a memorable experience. No one is going to touch a wall of lights or rows of plasma televisions because the visual que tells them what they see is soft or rough, sharp or smooth, pleasurable or painful. psychology studies have shown it is no the way the brain is wired. As report by the NY Times recent studies have emerged suggesting that for “all its antiquity and constancy, touch is not passive or primitive or stuck in its ways. It is our most active sense, our means of seizing the world and experiencing it, quite literally, first hand. Susan J. Lederman, a professor of psychology at Queen’s University in Canada, pointed out that while we can perceive something visually or acoustically from a distance and without really trying, if we want to learn about something tactilely, we must make a move.” We must rub the fabric, pet the cat, squeeze the Charmin. And with every touchy foray, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle looms large. “Contact is a two-way street, and that’s not true for vision or audition,” Dr. Lederman said. “If you have a soft object and you squeeze it, you change its shape. The physical world reacts back.” 2
Sense-sational Fact:
The skin is the largest organ in the body.
Fact:
Our fingertips, tongues and lips have the most nerve endings.
Fact:
The least sensitive part of your body is the middle of your back
Fact:
Shivering is a way your body has of trying to get warmer.
Fact:
You have more pain nerve endings than any other type.
Fact:
There are about 100 touch receptors in each of your fingertips.
Most of what we are talking about is related to product development and the interaction or reaction to materials as they relate to determining an appropriate solution for a design. It is easy to see that exhibits or environments, themselves are product showcases or experiences for a product to be interacted with. Most brands are promoting some sort of offering and they require solutions that can articulate the added- value propositions in order to stand outside the competition. in August 2009 a study took place in order to determine the relationship between touch perception physical properties. The research conducted by the team of Xiaojuan Chen, Fei Shao, Cathy Barnes, Tom Childs, and Brian Henson reported on the study of materials for consumer packaging. Exploring the connections between the sense of touch and the material’s physical attributes was determined by a study group testing thirty-seven varying tactile textures. The results showed that touch is often interpretive and is associated with more than one physical attribute. “The method used in this research is taken from affective engineering. Affective engineering is concerned with measuring people’s affective responses to products, identifying the properties of the products to which they are responding, and then using the information to design better products. It is a westernized approach to kansei engineering which has been pioneered by Nagamachi (1995) in Japan since the 1970s. Kansei is a Japanese term for consumers’ psychological impressions and feelings about a product.” The most interesting aspect of designing with textiles or using them as part of the overall communication vehicle can be summed up in
into very simple discussion. Materials have personalities that people react to. Consumers create emotional and memorable attachments to the things that they encounter and touch. For this reason fabric architecture is a prime solution for brands to extend their connections to their target audience. Touch is the most basic of the sense and one that is taken for granted everyday because it is utilized so often. Brand can touch their audience by using touch. It was proven in this study that individuals will vary in degrees and opinion on the adjectives used to describe a product or in the case of environments, the experience. But what is not in dispute is the fact that textiles and their physical properties created an emotional attachment or link to a brand and its product offering.
“This study is an essential step towards the understanding of relationships between a surface’s physical properties and consumer’s affective responses. This work aligns with industrial needs to be able to manufacture surfaces that would have desired affective impact on consumers.” 3
Exhibitor 2008 20x20 Printed Skin: Crushed Vellure
think about this There are two imperatives for designers of the experience world. The first imperative is to consider the role of emotions in the customer or target audience decision-making process. The second imperative is to design everything in ways that create and sustain, at every touch-point, memorable experiences that are consistent with the brand mission, vision, and position. Success responding to these two imperatives can be measured by improvements in operating results and brand value, but also by increases in levels of customer happiness—satisfaction and retention. So how do you express yourself? In my design world I use textiles to dictate the memorable, the unorthodox, the unimaginable. Every fabric offers an different and new way of looking at a brand’s identity. You pick the brand and I bet I can find a textile that articulates its position in the marketplace or specify a material that will be sure to delight the customer. Whether it is a visual or tactile sensation fabric is a economical way of extending a brand’s expression. LEO BOCZAR FI Design Advocate
So as Marieke suggests, can the same idea be translated to the tradeshow floor. The total sensory experience means creating an environment filled with stimuli that excites and delights or calms and soothes the human experience in a 3D space. Can a touch BECOME a lasting impression and a memory that becomes imbedded in the heart and mind of the individual within the experience? Remember no one remembers a tradeshow booth; they remember the experience. What if there were fabrics that supported this ideology? The idea is highly intriguing. A social anthropologist Ashley Montagu viewed touch as a language of its own—one that is learned well before writing and speech. With its extremely large vocabulary, Montagu argued that touch is capable of conveying what cannot be transmitted through more formal language, because the language of touch is completely natural, and without any artifice. So if we suggest that touch is a language, what are you saying to the masses in your solutions? Or better yet, can you even speak the language? It is fascinating to look around or read how designers are influencing the decisions of the consumer by making touch a relative part of the overall experience. There is a serious sense behind this interesting world of touch points. Touching the individual matters. Isn’t that the goal of any experience - reaching out and making a connection. If so many industries want to make a connection with their end-user, why are they reducing the ability to touch or “feel” the product or offering? Don’t believe me, consider this. The auto industry does it. While they add enhancements of leather seats or beautifully designed instruments and buttons they take away part of the whole experience of driving, for example, power steering, state-of-the-art suspension, tires that compensate for changing road conditions or the worst enhancement - governing devices for engine performance. While some of their enhancements improve safety and performance, do you suppose they take the “feel” out of driving by putting it on the shoulders of an onboard computer chip.
So I ask you, are you in touch or do you think you are?
in conclusion
As communicated by Marieke de Mooij of the Netherlands writes, “We do not have one adequate global language by which we can reach global consumers” (Sage, 2005). Because formal languages are culturally derived, the growth of global brands would seem to be inherently limited by the absence of any common global language. However, given the ability of the core senses- touch, taste, and scent- to establish bonds between consumers and brands at the sub-cultural level, could one of them-- perhaps touch-- potentially serve as the lingua franca of global branding?
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Choices, choices, there are many and some are so similar in personality that you might just miss the beauty of a textile if you don’t have your design eyes wide open. Understanding the nature of how a fabric will react and what are its traits is an education experience. The beauty of textiles is simple, they are constantly evolving. They are improving and becoming more focused on what is the design task that they are called upon to execute. What a cool time to be designing for the masses.
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