Design for Experience

The Design for Experience research group examines the way people experience everyday products. We aim to understand this experiencing and lay down this knowledge into models or theories. Simultaneously, we make this knowledge available and actionable to designers, by developing strategies, tools and methods for designing (for experience).

We often experience a product just by looking at it or thinking about it, but mostly when actively using it. In this, we use all our senses, our mind, and our body. Touching the texture of your mobile may feel pleasant, the sound of your car's engine may sound reliable, and you may feel proud when mastering a new game. The experience is the awareness of what's happening to us when we do all this perceiving, acting, and processing. Experience involves aesthetic/sensory pleasure, construction of meaning and emotional responses and in most of our experiences these three come intricately together.

In studying product experience we take either (1) the person experiencing or (2) the experience itself, as the starting point of our research.* For each perspective we define three main fields of research. For an overview of projects conducted within these fields, please click on the link of the field(s) you're interested in.

Main fields of research under (1):

            Sound design

               Multisensory design