Haptic aesthetics

Abstract

The Tensile headphone is a redesign of the HD6xx line for Sennheiser, to showcase new ideas of haptic aesthetic headphones and explore innovative directions. The project as a whole followed the Research through Design approach. That is, the design detailing of the Tensile headphone was used as a medium to gain knowledge about how aesthetic theories for product design (usually developed for the visual sense), are applicable to the haptic sense.
It was found that the researched aesthetic theories (unity - variety and novelty - typicality) can be applied to some extent to the haptic senses, with some factors to be considered. The RtD also helped understand how to better design for haptic aesthetics in headphones, but also expanding to other product categories.
There were three main design activities that led to these findings. An exploratory session with four groups of design students helped guide the design process to a haptically novel outcome. Once the design was completed, an empirical test was conducted on one aesthetic principle, testing iterations of the design. The chosen iteration was incorporated into a final design with which the second aesthetic principle was tested in a qualitative study with audiophiles (sound and audio gadget enthusiasts).