Colourful Rain - Experiencing Synaesthesia

This paper introduces a Kansei design method using psychophysiological research output as an inspiration means for the design of products taking highly into consideration user’s Kansei. The development of this method is itself a part of a series of design method creation based on the collaboration of the research fields of psychophysiology and design. The Kansei design method is based on four major steps involving both a classic design process and a literature investigation in psychophysiology. The main difficulty for the Kansei designer is to take into consideration the scientific rigor of the literature and to succeed to describe properly the behavioural phenomenon(a) she/he wishes to involve in the design process. As an example of design output, the colourful-rain umbrella is introduced. This umbrella lets its user to experience a rare synaesthetic perceptive phenomenon: all sounds in the rainy street are also perceived as colours (visually). To do so, the synaesthetic phenomenon is detailed from a psychophysiological point of view.