Surface Driven Design. Contextual Application of Emotive Texture

The surface of a product serves as the initial point of interaction, engaging users through sight and touch. Through these tactile and visual qualities, surfaces convey nuanced information, including value, intent, and functionality, while also evoking emotions through textural stimuli. This research advances prior findings, exploring how specific geometric features of parametrically created textures can evoke emotions and optimize their integration into the design process for enhanced user experience. Surface characteristics encompass physical and visual aspects, articulating an artifact’s purpose, identity, and user expectations, crucial in eliciting emotional responses alongside form and function elements in industrial design. The study explores emotive textures within autonomous vehicle interiors, offering a futuristic context of the design application. Through the creation and evaluation of tailored digital and physical models, it envisions a distinct interaction paradigm for autonomous vehicles, considering passengers’ emotional needs. Parametrically designed textures were designed based on hypothetical user interactions within an autonomous vehicle, followed by two-phase user testing: initially isolating texture samples and subsequently assessing them in context using to-scale physical prototypes alongside digital representations. This investigation yields a systematic approach, detailing the creation and implementation of parametrically designed and customisable textures adaptable to diverse design contexts. This approach enables designers to elicit targeted emotional responses and enhance user experience through surface design.