{"id":6586,"date":"2026-06-12T09:30:01","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T09:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/?p=6586"},"modified":"2026-06-15T16:35:32","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T16:35:32","slug":"designing-for-the-senses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/designing-for-the-senses\/","title":{"rendered":"Designing for the Senses"},"content":{"rendered":"

Think for a moment about the last station or airport you travelled through.<\/p>\n

What did it sound like? Was there a constant hum of announcements? A screeching train? Rolling suitcases? People rushing past? Are you tuning anything out?<\/em><\/p>\n

What could you see? Consistent use of colour and organised signage, or disjointed and overwhelming visual cues? Maybe the surroundings calmed you? Maybe the digital text flicking between screens and visual discord was stressful? What did you notice? What did you miss?<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\"ALT<\/a><\/p>\n

What did the ground feel like beneath your feet \u2013 or wheels? Perhaps smooth and seamless. Or perhaps uneven paving, gaps between surfaces, or sudden jolts through the body. Was there a lot of horizontal trekking despite help with vertical travel?<\/em><\/p>\n

Was the environment spacious and a comfortable temperature? Was it crowded, humid or hot in the summertime? Or freezing without protection from the blistering wind in the winter?<\/em><\/p>\n

Did you consider other modes of travel? How did you wayfind? How did you know where to go? Did you rely on technology? Touch? Routine? Following crowds? Asking someone for help?<\/em><\/p>\n

How were other people using that same space? Were they courteous? Were they considerate? Did you feel seen?<\/em><\/p>\n

And what happened when something unexpected disrupted that journey?<\/em><\/p>\n

A broken lift. An unclear announcement. An inaccessible toilet. A platform change. A rail replacement. These are not minor inconveniences for many disabled people. They can determine whether a journey remains possible at all.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

My work explores the sensory experiences of travel through what I describe as\u00a0situated sensing<\/em>\u00a0– understanding mobility through lived, embodied and emotional experience rather than through detached measurements alone. For what happens to fatigue? To fear? To sensory overload? To uncertainty? To the emotional labour of navigating public space while disabled? What happens at the destination when all our energy has been drained by the travel itself?<\/p>\n

Methods such as sensory mapping and storyboarding represent knowledge produced through proximity and exposure \u2013 knowledge that emerges from actually inhabiting transport spaces. Participants experience stations as, \u201ca wall of noise\u201d, \u201ca race to the ticket barriers\u201d, and vertigo induced by \u201cmind the gap, mind the gap\u201d. The exhaustion of unfamiliarity. The emotional impact of uncertainty. The bodily effort of moving through crowds. The sensory negotiation involved in simply finding a seat, locating a platform, or crossing a concourse.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

Cripistemology challenges dominant assumptions about whose knowledge matters. Rather than treating disability as a limitation to overcome, it recognises disabled experience as a valuable source of insight. It asks us to understand disability not as an individual problem, but as something produced relationally through environments, systems and social expectations. This also means paying attention to crip time. Transport systems are organised around urgency and speed. Move quickly. Transfer swiftly. Keep up. But not everybody moves at the same pace. Some people require pauses. Recovery. Predictability. Time to orient themselves. Time to regulate sensory input.<\/p>\n

Stations, airports and transport interchanges are often described as infrastructures of connectivity. They are designed to move people efficiently between trains, buses, pavements, taxis, bicycles and other forms of travel. But they are also infrastructures of the senses. They are places of noise, vibration, pressure, urgency, light, touch, heat, crowds and confusion.<\/p>\n

For some, these spaces feel exciting or energising. For others, they can feel overwhelming, alienating or even dangerous. How do they feel for you?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Think for a moment about the last station or airport you travelled through. What did it sound like? Was there a constant hum of announcements? A screeching train? Rolling suitcases? People rushing past? Are you tuning anything out? What could you see? Consistent use of colour and organised signage, or disjointed and overwhelming visual cues? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":6608,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[401,58,230,399,140,400,188,398],"class_list":["post-6586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-design-research","tag-accessibility","tag-co-design","tag-collaborative-design","tag-disability","tag-inclusive-design","tag-mobility","tag-transport","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/62"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6586"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6612,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6586\/revisions\/6612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}