Sensory Engagement & the Haptic:

-When you engage/interact with all different parts of your body – using all senses.

-For example smell – by smelling something you know it automatically triggers an image in your head. For example the smell of oranges will remind me of an orange etc. We, without realising also use our smell sense as an instinct – if something didn’t smell too great we would naturally reject it, we know it may harm us and be bad for us (and vice versa).

-Another example would be touch (tactile) – by touching specific material, our body picks up certain information for example if something was holding a rock the information that will be portrayed to us is that it is hard/solid, whereas if we were holding a pillow our body tells us that it is soft and cuddly – we use tactile in order to distinguish between different forms of material.

There are many ways in which ones body can interact in a certain environment. Although we use our body to interact with a computer, interaction is limited – all we really can do is to type, to move, to click and to read.
‘What we need is a reconsideration of spatial paradigms in an immaterial world’ - Jessica Helfand ‘Dematerialization of Screen Space’ 2001 (Graphic Design Theory p.119-23)
Helfand explains how we should reconsider designing models that help stop the limitation of our senses. She portrays how things should maybe be taken away from the screen, and to give users more opportunity for things to happen within a larger space. Seeing as the screen is 2D/linear, it takes away much detail and the feeling of an open space (3D).


‘Efforts to break out of the box.’ - Helfand p.122



















These two videos show a way of interacting with the screen but not physically – in this case the screen becomes more of a content used in order to get the information needed – it acts as a guide. This illustrates Helfands word; as it shows a different way in which one can interact in the real world, giving a spatial atmosphere, but still using the computer at the same time.


‘Designers have also matured beyond the first moments of irresistible and immoderate enthusiasm for the new mediums, and learned to control their touch and to wear technology, instead of letting technology wear them’. - Paola Antonelli, ‘Digital by Design’ forward p9 2008
This in a way echo’s the meaning/concept of the above videos. Antonelli talks about one wearing technology – meaning to control it; using their knowledge in order to create new technology instead of technology wearing them – if no one experiments to do something new technology will stay the same, meaning it will ‘wear’ us.

Sensory engagement is all about the physical journey, movement and the space you use around you. It allows participation in a natural humanistic way – it is the physical nature.



A few sites that show more physical nature are listed below