Smell in Industrial Design: A Systematic Review

Abstract

A smell in industrial product design is defined as an awareness of the dimensions in design creation. Theoretical development for the role of smells in design has led to a significant increase in industrial design. However, despite numerous studies on smells within industrial design, a holistic overview through systematic reporting remains unavailable. In this paper, the authors conducted a systematic review of studies on smells in academic articles on industrial design. The review method was adopted from the Reporting Standards for Systematic Evidence Syntheses (ROSES). The academic databases involved are Scopus, Science Direct, Web of Science and Google Scholar. This study discovered that studies on smells in industrial design have researched the following aspects: 1) smells as design attributes; 2) users' perceptions based on smells; and 3) appraisals of smells embedded in products. Practitioners, educators and researchers can use this systematic review to examine the needs of smell-related sensorial concerns in the current product design applications.