Sensual surfaces: engaging consumers through surface textures

Research is being carried out at the University of Leeds in collaboration with the Faraday Packaging Partnership that aims to enhance consumers' enjoyment of products by carefully designing the surfaces and textures of the packaging. The aim of the research reported in the poster is to develop a service for the members of the Faraday Packaging Partnership that could inform them of the physical characteristics of the surfaces of their packaging that would enhance the consumers' emotional engagement with their product. The methodology is to characterize the surface textures of the packaging of personal care products and to correlate properties of the surfaces to the emotions evoked from consumers recorded through the use of focus groups and the semantic differential technique. Initial results give us confidence that the semiotic techniques give consistent and valid results for the tactile domain.