Seductive packaging
Studies show that it’s the visual appeal of the packaging that makes us pick one product over another, but radical new research is exploring a more tactile approach. Dr Cathy Barnes, manager at the Faraday Packaging Partnership and lead researcher in the Affective Design Research Group at the School of Mechanical Engineering, University of Leeds, is exploring how textures trigger emotions.

Adapting the Japanese design system, Kansei Engineering, used by companies such as Mazda to measure emotional responses to the look of a product, Barnes is studying how to appeal to consumers' sense of touch.

Stroking surfaces
‘Even with the smallest purchase,’ says Barnes, ‘we operate very much at an emotional level.  As an engineering designer, it's really interesting for me to look at how we can tap into human emotions to create products that people really cherish and love. As a researcher I need to know what we can work with as part of the design that will really appeal to people’s underlying needs. A lot of companies are very interested in what we are doing.’

The life-size silicone rubber finger senses the roughness or smoothness of a surface. Software then processes information collected by the finger, including temperature and pressure.

Dr Barnes explains, ‘when we started to use our own fingers to gather information about tactile sensations we got very variable results. We had to develop a standard finger as a benchmark in our studies. This led to the creation of the artificial finger. One of the things we're doing is stroking surfaces to identify what we can feel, but if we are measuring the characteristics of that surface it's very hard for a person to apply a constant force. The artificial finger can do that.’

Delectable wrapping
The context is important, what feels good on a mobile phone may not feel as pleasant on a chocolate wrapper. ‘We can test a lot of surfaces,’ explains Barnes,  ‘and find out what it is that consumers really like or don't like. Then we can create an artificial surface that takes all the best bits from the different wrappers and test it again to see if people do actually like it much better.’ The consumer can look forward to literally feeling better.