Is Wellbeing Born from Sight? The Sense of Touch as a Source of Information for Design Decisions

Abstract

This article is focused on finding differences or similarities between perceptions involving the senses of sight and touch, with the goal of understanding the role of the latter in interior design decisions. This is done through tests of the textures of materials used in the surfaces of tables and chairs. It was found that, among the materials studied, there was a higher sense of wellbeing, security, trust and comfort registered in the haptic perception and active touch tests than in the visual perception tests. People’s perceptions of objects are individual and unique, and so this article does not pretend to universalize these results, but it does show that haptic perception and active touch are useful in the teaching of design.