The five senses (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) are considered crucial to the design of tangible elements in experience-centric services.
People gain information about their physical environment through their senses, and the senses can be a direct route to customers’ emotions (Roberts 2004).
The more effectively an experience engages the senses, the more memorable it will be (Pine and Gilmore 1998; Haeckel, Carbone and Berry 2003).
The importance of influencing customers’ senses has received some attention in retail atmospherics, specifically the effect of the use of music in retail environments and, to a lesser extent, the effects of scents, colors, and lighting (Turley and Milliman 2000).
Some studies have found that sensory cues can influence behavior even when customers are not consciously aware of them. Hence, sensory design, design that stimulates all senses, is expected to be an important element in the development of experience centric services.
This leads to the following proposition:
P2: The design of experience-centric services involves sensory design.