"With the rapid development of the global economy, people's lifestyles have achieved unprecedented changes. People obtain various information about the products through the body's senses, and process the information through the brain to inform people what the product is, what functions it has, and how to use it. The senses of the body include sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. The products with multisensory modalities can better meet user needs and enhance user experience. The key to integrating multiple senses into product design is to find user needs, so as to better meet user needs. Therefore, the thesis proposes methods to find the user needs of multisensory products.
The thesis first introduces the research background and necessity of the multisensory theory applied to product design, and puts forward methods to find the user needs of multisensory products. At the same time, it puts forward the purpose and the scope of the thesis research.Secondly, the thesis proposes the research direction of multisensory theory: to find the user needs of multisensory products. Through comparation and analysis of existing methods of researching users and user needs, two methods are selected: the persona and user experience mapping.
Thirdly, the chapter Ⅲ and chapter Ⅳ are the most important part of the thesis, which propose the methods of establishing the persona and user experience mapping. According to the shortcomings of the persona and user experience mapping, the thesis puts forward the aspects that should be improved when studying the user needs of multisensory products. Basing on summarizing the existing elements of the persona and user experience mapping, the thesis establishes the models of persona and user experience mapping, which are for the purpose of studying multisensory products.
Fourthly, this part of the thesis conducts case study in the form of workshops. On the basis of research data, the models of persona and user experience mapping are gradually established according to the methods discussed in the thesis, so as to analyze and propose the user needs of the specific product in multisensory form. Finally, the research methods and process are evaluated. The research results of the thesis can supplement the existing theory of multisensory product design, help designers find out the user needs of multisensory products faster and effective, and provide theoretical reference in terms of finding user needs of related products. At the same time, the thesis also has certain shortcomings. For example, the definition of sensory patterns are not perfect, and ways of presenting of the persona is not perfect. The research of the user experience mapping needs to be studied in depth.
