Scent as a Sensory Modality for Data Physicalisation for Office Well-being

While the office environment is increasingly viewed as an opportune setting to improve the health and well-being of individuals, the use of scent to physicalize data in this field is mostly under-explored. To study the role of olfactory artifacts in the context of office well-being, we developed two artifacts: Re-cafeen and Whiff. Both artifacts use different scent modalities based on different data types and spatial placements. The used scents in the artifacts are based on a study of 10 scents which asked participants (N=13) to express which scents correspond to the following activities: (i) having an active meeting, (ii) taking a break from work, and (iii) working behind a standing desk. The artifacts were evaluated using smell space mapping. Based on this evaluation, we reflect on the challenges for future work on this topic. Our insights are relevant for the development of olfactory artifacts on the topic of office well-being.