The Senses & Design- Kurt

Sight
or vision is the ability of the brain and eye to detect electromagnetic waves within the visible range (light) interpreting the image as "sight."
I guess sight would have to be the first on the list when it comes to design and the senses, as we are visual artists and communicating through graphic design, it,s the first sense that we use when analyzing someone or thing.


Touch
also called mechanoreception or somatic sensation, is the sense of pressure perception, generally in the skin. There are a variety of (nerve endings) that respond to variations in pressure (e.g., firm, brushing, and sustained).
Touch would be 2nd in line when dealing with the design process as we generally process our ideas and pick up a pen or pencil to begin to transfer visual thoughts and ideas to paper.Touch is also important to us as we may have to design a 3 dimensional object that we can hold and really get a feel for how it will be.


Hearing
or audition is the sense of sound perception. Since sound is vibrations propagating through a medium such as air, the detection of these vibrations, that is the sense of the hearing, is a mechanical sense akin to a sense of touch, albeit a very specialized one.
I,m not sure if touch or hearing would come before another in the design process as they are equally as important as each other, in saying this if you are receiving a brief maybe at a meeting, hearing would be right along side sight as you are listening to the boss give you the brief and maybe reading it on paper at the same time. Personally sound is very important part of my design process as i find when there are distracting noises or sounds going on around me i find it difficult to be creative, and when i,m listening to my favorite music i will flow and work effectively.


Smell
or olfaction is the other "chemical" sense. Unlike taste, there are hundreds of olfactory receptors, each binding to a particular molecular feature. Odour molecules possess a variety of features and thus excite specific receptors more or less strongly. This combination of excitatory signals from different receptors makes up what we perceive as the molecule's smell.
Smell is also a major factor in the design process as our environment where we work has a lot to do with the quality of work that we are producing, for example i know when we are sitting in either of the computer rooms working away and the air conditioning isn´t on or the windows arn´t open there´s quite a strong smell of human odor so to say, and we really can,t be effectively creative.


Taste
or gustation is one of the two main "chemical" senses. There are at least four types of tastes that "buds" (receptors) on the tongue detect, and hence there are anatomists who argue that these constitute five or more different senses, given that each receptor conveys information to a slightly different region of the brain. The four well-known receptors detect sweet, salt, sour, and bitter.
Taste would have to be just as important as smell in the design process, the saying YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT definitely sums it up. Something that is really important when doing good design is to be feeling top fit, you can,t work properly when your sick, hungover or hungry for that matter and good tasting food or drink is a major contributing factor to how the machine (us designers) will work.