The Choreography of Perception
We treat visual perception as primary and the other senses as secondary. A hierarchy so deeply embedded in practice of design that we barely notice it anymore. But this assumption contradicts perceptual neuroscience and has reached its cultural limit.
When you enter a space, visual, auditory, olfactory, and somatosensory systems activate in parallel, producing an aligned perceptual state.
Designing for perception addresses the gap between how we design and how we actually perceive.
Many current approaches to Multisensory Design still operate within a separation logic. Often they just add modalities without integrating them. They treat non-visual modalities as enhancements to a primarily visual experience. Common examples include ambient music in restaurants or scent branding in retail environments.
But what if we flip the script?
What if we asked not “how do we add sensory elements to visual design?” but rather “what is the optimal sensory combination to create a specific experience?”
This requires a new conceptual approach.
It involves understanding the grammar of perception, the principles by which sensory modalities relate, amplify, and transform each other, and recognizing that these modalities operate as interconnected systems.
A color influences how we perceive a sound and a scent shapes what we see and touch modulates taste.The solution is not simply adding more sensory channels. We need to understand the translation between them. For example, how a concept expressed in color might translate into sound or identify the olfactory equivalent of a visual rhythm.
The change of design thinking.
Visual input is exhausted and more and more automated while the other senses remain structurally unused and remain available for deliberate design.
Designers who design across senses provide alternatives to visual only design, hey create new sensory experiences, that connect deeper than the flood of competing visual signals.
@2025 CAROLIN VEDDER
