Paper highlights

A new paper by Beşevli et al. published in Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '24), Smell Above All: Envisioning Smell-Centred Future Worlds, explores how while sight and hearing dominate our perceptions, the sense of smell is often overlooked, even undervalued. However, the importance of our sense of smell goes beyond detecting odours. It shapes our emotions, memories, behaviour and quality of life.

Recent advances in olfactory interfaces have sparked discussions about the future of smell in human-computer interaction. While efforts mainly focus on the realisation of new olfactory interfaces, the authors explore alternative worlds centred around the sense of smell. First, the research team conducted a design futuring workshop involving individuals with varying smell capabilities and expertise to envision and discuss smell-centred futures. Then, through iterative reflection, they arrived at three smell worlds presented as narratives and visuals. From this conceptual work, new perspectives and generative possibilities are presented for design research that prioritises our noses.

Ceylan Beşevli, Giada Brianza, Christopher Dawes, Nonna Shabanova, Sanjoli Mathur, Matt Lechner, Emanuela Maggioni, Duncan Boak, Carl Philpott, Ava Fatah Gen. Schieck and Marianna Obrist. 'Smell Above All: Envisioning Smell-Centred Future Worlds'. In: Proceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS '24). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 2024: 2530–44. doi: https://doi.org/10.1145/3643834.3660699