EXPECTED IMPACT & HOW I’D MEASURE IT
I framed impact as testable hypotheses.
Users can narrow choices with less hesitation.
Measure
Time to shortlist · Confidence · Recommendation acceptance
Business signal
Lower decision friction before purchase
Users can describe and compare scents more clearly.
Measure
Description quality · Understanding · Comparison confidence
Business signal
Stronger product understanding.
Users can remember and return to the scent after leaving.
Measure
Scent recall · Saved scent engagement · Return intent
Business signal
More post-visit re-engagement
EARLY CONCEPT — Where it started
It began as a place: an afternoon perfume bar set in a rose garden, where scent was meant to be felt through taste, sound, and atmosphere.
But immersion alone wasn't enough. The space showed me what was possible; the system made the experience portable, guided, and repeatable.
REFLECTION
Designing against a habit no one questions.
The hardest part wasn't adding more senses. It was designing for a behavior people had never been asked to try. With no existing pattern to follow, I had to define what a good experience should feel like, then test my way toward it.
The experience comes before the interface.
My background in spatial and brand design taught me to think beyond the screen. This project reinforced that the answer to a digital problem isn't always more interface; sometimes the real design work is shaping the physical moment the interface supports.
QUESTION BEHIND IT
What happens when a product depends on one primary sense, and that sense is no longer enough?
SOLUTION PREVIEW
A guided journey from decision, to other senses, to memory.
Mood → Intensity → Recommendation
Hear it → Taste it
Record it → Remember it
problem
Even when atmosphere and staff shape the store experience, the fragrance itself is still primarily evaluated through smell.
Perfume is emotional and memory driven. Yet in store, it gets judged on smell alone.
Survey, 70 millennial fragrance shoppers
After a few samples the scents blur.
Scents Blur
"After three or four scents, everything blends together."
No Direction
"The space feels nice, but it doesn't guide me."
Nothing Sticks
"I choose by mood, but I can't explain why."
And the one sense it all rests on can simply disappear.
After COVID, many people lost their sense of smell, some for good. In a perfume store they had no other way in. It showed what happens when everything leans on a single sense.
35-50%
Lost their sense of smell after COVID
Self-reported smell loss in COVID-19. Hannum et al., Chemical Senses, 2020.
This became the starting point for a broader question about how people access, compare, and remember scent.
Turning point is here,
What if fragrance could be felt, heard, and tasted, not just smelled?
INITIAL FINDINGS
People wanted richer sensory cues, but still wanted the store.
I ran an online survey with 70 millennials about how they actually experience perfume in a store. Seven in ten said a multi-sensory store would make it better.
People wanted more than smell, but still wanted the store.
But, where should that experience actually live?
Based on survey, most people still bought perfume in a physical store, not online.
KEY PRODUCT DECISION
So I made a key product decision:
Support the physical store experience rather than replace it.
People needed a way to read, compare, and remember scent when smell alone was not enough.
That became three principles.
DESIGN PRINCIPLES
I structured the experience around three principles.
These principles later became the criteria I used to test the first prototype.
VALIDATING THE FIRST VERSION
Did the prototype actually deliver Guide, Translate, and Anchor?
FLOW ITERATION
From a linear recommendation flow to a guided sensory journey.
I restructured the flow so each sensory layer had a clear role in one connected journey.
DESIGN DIRECTION
I used two qualities of perfume as the visual language: diffusion and glass.
Translating fragrance into interface
DESIGN DECISION
Beyond the Nose
Designing for when one sense is not enough.
An alternative in-store experience layer for fragrance.
ROLE
Product Designer
Experience Designer
DURATION
4 months
PROJECT TYPE
Speculative solo project
Reviewed by 2 design mentors
TOOLS & SKILLS
Figma
Prototyping
Visual Storytelling
UX Research