please welcome to the TEDx Sonoma County
stage dr. ho be Wed ler
hi there I want you to join me and
imagine being in a field standing there
on a foggy spring morning in southern
Sonoma County the visual is striking and
commands your full attention what other
information do your other four senses
offer you it has nothing to do with
vision you can hear the birds chirping
in the trees girls move in the distance
in that you can feel the viscosity of
the air on your face coming from the
thick fog smells of bay eucalyptus and
redwood trees mingle with manure alfalfa
and fresh-cut grass to form an aromatic
Symphony it is nothing short of
beautiful the ground is soft and
yielding beneath your feet from the
winter rains if my white cane didn’t
give it away I’m completely blind and I
was born this way I stood in this field
that I just described many years ago
with a group of sighted friends he could
not stop talking about the view they all
wanted to describe the Vista to me even
trying to describe what the color green
looks like frankly didn’t really care
what the color green looked like because
of all the sensory information that I
was getting non visually when we got
back in the car I asked them to
experiment decided to explain to them
what I noticed about the surroundings
surprisingly to me they noticed none of
this they were so focused on the visual
that they were incapable of looking
beyond eyesight eyesight is a valuable
sense indeed
it tells us a great deal about the world
around us but it can be distracting and
it can cause our other senses if we’re
not careful to go
dormant I’ve seen this in my clients
this experience in the field along with
countless others helped me to understand
sensory design but before we address
sensory design we need to talk about
sensory literacy what is sensory
literacy I believe that every thoughtful
person should be able to take in data
from all five of their senses process
that data and then intelligently draw
conclusions or predictions we’re all
visually literate if you see an orange
cat you know it’s orange it’s a cat and
if it did any like thing it wouldn’t be
alarmed if you look at a beautiful
vineyard in the distance you know you’re
looking at a vineyard but how often have
you been going about your daily life
when you put familiar smell on the air
you know it but you can’t think of what
it is it’s like having a word on the tip
of your tongue you can’t quite think of
inherently because we use vision so much
we’re more literate than that than we
are in our other senses they urge you to
try to become more literate as literate
as possible in your other senses can
like anything in life we can’t do that
unless we practice those other senses
smell things feel things listen to them
focus in on them I recently received my
PhD from the University of
california-davis in organic chemistry
concurrently with graduate school I
hosted tasting events and I still do
which temporarily remove eye sight you
see one of those in a bit ultimately I
realized that I have a deep love and
passion for both art and science and
what I’m doing with my career is I’m
trying to shape it such that it
straddles this intersection this very
fine line between art and science
I call that sensory design simply put
art fills our toolbox
with many useful tools excuse me science
fills our toolbox with many useful tools
an art refers to how we use those tools
when you hear the word sensory what
initially comes to mind for me I used to
think of sensory as confined only to the
food and drink world I have since
realized that sensory is so far beyond
food and beverage we live it we breathe
it literally everything around us from
my voice to the smell of the theater to
the way the carpet feels beneath their
feet
everything is sensory the following
examples only scratch the surface of
what I do as a sensory designer and I
hope they illustrate the depth and reach
of this field take a look at these two
coffee cups they’re 10 minutes late to
work but you still stop at that coffee
shop because you need your little
caffeine and you get a surprisingly high
quality cup of joe in that paper to-go
cup with a flimsy lid and a tiny
drinking hole I guarantee you the
experience of drinking that coffee is
entirely different than the experience
of drinking the exact same cup of coffee
out of the beautiful ceramic mug on
holiday reading a Sunday paper would be
my only point here is that our
understanding of that coffee and our
perception of it and anything really is
highly dependent on a multitude of
sensory and psychological inputs for
beyond the cup and what’s in it would
you ever think of drinking wine straight
out of the bottle like we might take a
slug of beer society’s led us to believe
that we need this funny shaped glass to
properly enjoy wine why is beer not the
same at the reception in a few minutes I
urge each and every one of you to stop
me
bar grab a bottle of wine and take a
swig right out of it
they’re gonna be judged for it but why
why are you gonna be judged to switch
gears a little bit let’s now listen to
first the sound of an entry-level and
then a luxury automobile door shutting
entry-level or cherry I’ll play them
again and what differences do you hear
entry-level luxury clearly the luxury
manufacturers put more attention into
making the sound of their door shutting
quieter and a bit more complete right
the entry-level car door shuts with much
more of a clatter the choke let’s turn
you pick out a car I bet that a lot a
multitude of non-visual and frankly
fairly subconscious sensors data will
play in your buying decision including
the sound and the feel of the door we
think we buy cars because we like the
lines we like the way they look but
we’re really buying them for many
reasons a lot of them being the
subconscious non visual sensory inputs
that we receive now I want to show you
sensory design in action I wanted to
give each and every one of you a glass
of wine but the theater wouldn’t let me
so that means that if you want to see
this for yourself I guess you’re gonna
have to buy me a drink
it’s thus my great pleasure to welcome
to the stage my dear friend dr. Charles
Pyle who chairs the school of
illustration at the acalypha
Academy of Arts University in San
Francisco Chuck welcome he’ll be happy
to do it you look sharp today by the way
hey everybody by the way this painting
that you see Chuck is an accomplished
longtime painter and you see one of his
images up here Chuck I particularly love
this one thank you it’s beautiful now I
live I live under a blindfold but Chuck
doesn’t Chuck is a very visual person in
his career and I use his vision every
day to paint these beautiful things but
are you gonna spend the next few minutes
under blindfold if you don’t mind
great oh my gosh yes
aside from that sound of the rain forest
that you just heard one of my favorite
clips from the Amazon what do you feel
right now Chuck how does this space feel
to you my ears reach out in front of my
head and the room fills in from the
sides yeah you can hear the vastness of
the audience in front of you mm-hmm I’m
just reminding you of that just in case
a good 750 friends that’s right Chuck on
the table in front of you you have two
glasses by the way anyone who wants to
give a TEDx talk in the future I
encourage doing it with wine we’re gonna
find the glass on the left go ahead you
got it mm-hmm okay we’re gonna go ahead
and lift it up insist no wait what do
you smell
hmm beautiful minerals we talk in our
own few minerals but this opal that
Chuck pointed out is really more of a
Browning Apple smell take a green apple
cut it in half and set it on the counter
for a few hours it begins to get a
browning essence going by the way you
all get to see what Chuck’s drinking he
doesn’t know let’s go ahead and taste it
hmm nope how does it feel on your
Pollitt drive little bit dry meaning me
my sugar less sugar besides of mine
tongue are being constricted there’s a
little bitterness there that’s just
perfect
it’s a beautiful oak not that nice fruit
that comes through that a delicious
fruit – absolutely
hazelnuts mm-hmm and almost a minerality
which we call petrichor like wet rain or
wet pavement after the rain I live near
Chuck and he sees me sniffing pavement
all the time and that’s why I know
that’s just true Chuck what colors you
think this is it’s gotta be a white
absolutely good job what’s the riedel it
has to be Chardonnay he’s a natural
it’s a Chardonnay indeed from Dutton
Estate Winery our dear friends out in
Sebastopol hmm lovely let’s go on to the
red wine here let’s go on to the second
wine here
I had to give you that one not a rose a
no well actually no I’m snowing it’s
actually an IPA mm-hmm I’ll chug
what does it smell like Oh
dense summer fruits a little sugar
brilliant thing though with this wine
don’t you notice like a dark fruit
darling cherry plum blackberry etc mixed
with these really bright vibrant fruits
mm-hmm fresh cranberry like on the
Thanksgiving table yes let’s taste it
and with this one we want you to breathe
a little bit of air through it we call
this aspiration cannons mm-hmm a bit of
astringency that’s so natural what else
do you notice you know there’s a
characteristic of wine light system
which is Chirico watch there we go
there’s that beautiful almost black
cherry mixed with that lemon lime
cinnamon and vanilla casting going yes
gorgeous wine what color is this
it’s a red man what’s the varietal this
has to be a fabulous Noma County Pinot
it absolutely is this is a Pinot Noir
made by Kathleen Inman
it’s her estate Oh G V Pinot from her
property out on Piner road Chuck you’ve
done a very abbreviated abbreviated
version of this usually I take these for
about an hour to an hour and a half but
what did you think of it what and how do
you feel with the blindfold now that
we’ve done this well I’m a visual artist
and I look for beauty in everything
around me it reminds me that great wine
like great art shares beauty with us
only using different sensory channels
and now when I go back out into the real
world the cited work I’m going to have
to use all of my other channels a lot
more absolutely Chuck thank you very
much thank you for joining me we use
vision for 85 to 90 percent of the
information we acquire about our
surroundings that means that we have
four other perfectly good senses to
obtain 10 to 15% of the information
around us it’s a lot of senses and not
very much information I know eyesight is
very valuable and if you have it you
should definitely use it with that said
I hope my remarks have allowed you to
open your mind to the rich and more full
opportunity that life can can offer and
be like if you use all five of your
senses
you may taste how it feels to experience
the non visual world so profoundly if
you’ve ever experienced true love you’ve
experienced this feeling true deep
compassionate love is so rich intense
and unlike anything else
this is the closest I can come to
describing the richness fulfillment and
beauty I feel every day
as I navigate the world around me
without vision we live right now in a
society that can be limited thinking
about the theme of this conference a
world without limits and I tell you that
is a boring person some might think of
my lack of eyesight as a limit it has
made my world drop limits I feel like
the world is so open to me but I think
that if we all work together to use our
senses in a very positive way you too
and we all will notice that we are
living a life that is less limited and
richer it’s time you drive to the coast
drive anywhere or really do anything
roll down the windows smell the air feel
the hate that wind in your hair and be
sensitive and absorbent to everything
that’s going on around you trust your
eyesight but not so much that it makes
your other senses lazy thank you very
much
stage dr. ho be Wed ler
hi there I want you to join me and
imagine being in a field standing there
on a foggy spring morning in southern
Sonoma County the visual is striking and
commands your full attention what other
information do your other four senses
offer you it has nothing to do with
vision you can hear the birds chirping
in the trees girls move in the distance
in that you can feel the viscosity of
the air on your face coming from the
thick fog smells of bay eucalyptus and
redwood trees mingle with manure alfalfa
and fresh-cut grass to form an aromatic
Symphony it is nothing short of
beautiful the ground is soft and
yielding beneath your feet from the
winter rains if my white cane didn’t
give it away I’m completely blind and I
was born this way I stood in this field
that I just described many years ago
with a group of sighted friends he could
not stop talking about the view they all
wanted to describe the Vista to me even
trying to describe what the color green
looks like frankly didn’t really care
what the color green looked like because
of all the sensory information that I
was getting non visually when we got
back in the car I asked them to
experiment decided to explain to them
what I noticed about the surroundings
surprisingly to me they noticed none of
this they were so focused on the visual
that they were incapable of looking
beyond eyesight eyesight is a valuable
sense indeed
it tells us a great deal about the world
around us but it can be distracting and
it can cause our other senses if we’re
not careful to go
dormant I’ve seen this in my clients
this experience in the field along with
countless others helped me to understand
sensory design but before we address
sensory design we need to talk about
sensory literacy what is sensory
literacy I believe that every thoughtful
person should be able to take in data
from all five of their senses process
that data and then intelligently draw
conclusions or predictions we’re all
visually literate if you see an orange
cat you know it’s orange it’s a cat and
if it did any like thing it wouldn’t be
alarmed if you look at a beautiful
vineyard in the distance you know you’re
looking at a vineyard but how often have
you been going about your daily life
when you put familiar smell on the air
you know it but you can’t think of what
it is it’s like having a word on the tip
of your tongue you can’t quite think of
inherently because we use vision so much
we’re more literate than that than we
are in our other senses they urge you to
try to become more literate as literate
as possible in your other senses can
like anything in life we can’t do that
unless we practice those other senses
smell things feel things listen to them
focus in on them I recently received my
PhD from the University of
california-davis in organic chemistry
concurrently with graduate school I
hosted tasting events and I still do
which temporarily remove eye sight you
see one of those in a bit ultimately I
realized that I have a deep love and
passion for both art and science and
what I’m doing with my career is I’m
trying to shape it such that it
straddles this intersection this very
fine line between art and science
I call that sensory design simply put
art fills our toolbox
with many useful tools excuse me science
fills our toolbox with many useful tools
an art refers to how we use those tools
when you hear the word sensory what
initially comes to mind for me I used to
think of sensory as confined only to the
food and drink world I have since
realized that sensory is so far beyond
food and beverage we live it we breathe
it literally everything around us from
my voice to the smell of the theater to
the way the carpet feels beneath their
feet
everything is sensory the following
examples only scratch the surface of
what I do as a sensory designer and I
hope they illustrate the depth and reach
of this field take a look at these two
coffee cups they’re 10 minutes late to
work but you still stop at that coffee
shop because you need your little
caffeine and you get a surprisingly high
quality cup of joe in that paper to-go
cup with a flimsy lid and a tiny
drinking hole I guarantee you the
experience of drinking that coffee is
entirely different than the experience
of drinking the exact same cup of coffee
out of the beautiful ceramic mug on
holiday reading a Sunday paper would be
my only point here is that our
understanding of that coffee and our
perception of it and anything really is
highly dependent on a multitude of
sensory and psychological inputs for
beyond the cup and what’s in it would
you ever think of drinking wine straight
out of the bottle like we might take a
slug of beer society’s led us to believe
that we need this funny shaped glass to
properly enjoy wine why is beer not the
same at the reception in a few minutes I
urge each and every one of you to stop
me
bar grab a bottle of wine and take a
swig right out of it
they’re gonna be judged for it but why
why are you gonna be judged to switch
gears a little bit let’s now listen to
first the sound of an entry-level and
then a luxury automobile door shutting
entry-level or cherry I’ll play them
again and what differences do you hear
entry-level luxury clearly the luxury
manufacturers put more attention into
making the sound of their door shutting
quieter and a bit more complete right
the entry-level car door shuts with much
more of a clatter the choke let’s turn
you pick out a car I bet that a lot a
multitude of non-visual and frankly
fairly subconscious sensors data will
play in your buying decision including
the sound and the feel of the door we
think we buy cars because we like the
lines we like the way they look but
we’re really buying them for many
reasons a lot of them being the
subconscious non visual sensory inputs
that we receive now I want to show you
sensory design in action I wanted to
give each and every one of you a glass
of wine but the theater wouldn’t let me
so that means that if you want to see
this for yourself I guess you’re gonna
have to buy me a drink
it’s thus my great pleasure to welcome
to the stage my dear friend dr. Charles
Pyle who chairs the school of
illustration at the acalypha
Academy of Arts University in San
Francisco Chuck welcome he’ll be happy
to do it you look sharp today by the way
hey everybody by the way this painting
that you see Chuck is an accomplished
longtime painter and you see one of his
images up here Chuck I particularly love
this one thank you it’s beautiful now I
live I live under a blindfold but Chuck
doesn’t Chuck is a very visual person in
his career and I use his vision every
day to paint these beautiful things but
are you gonna spend the next few minutes
under blindfold if you don’t mind
great oh my gosh yes
aside from that sound of the rain forest
that you just heard one of my favorite
clips from the Amazon what do you feel
right now Chuck how does this space feel
to you my ears reach out in front of my
head and the room fills in from the
sides yeah you can hear the vastness of
the audience in front of you mm-hmm I’m
just reminding you of that just in case
a good 750 friends that’s right Chuck on
the table in front of you you have two
glasses by the way anyone who wants to
give a TEDx talk in the future I
encourage doing it with wine we’re gonna
find the glass on the left go ahead you
got it mm-hmm okay we’re gonna go ahead
and lift it up insist no wait what do
you smell
hmm beautiful minerals we talk in our
own few minerals but this opal that
Chuck pointed out is really more of a
Browning Apple smell take a green apple
cut it in half and set it on the counter
for a few hours it begins to get a
browning essence going by the way you
all get to see what Chuck’s drinking he
doesn’t know let’s go ahead and taste it
hmm nope how does it feel on your
Pollitt drive little bit dry meaning me
my sugar less sugar besides of mine
tongue are being constricted there’s a
little bitterness there that’s just
perfect
it’s a beautiful oak not that nice fruit
that comes through that a delicious
fruit – absolutely
hazelnuts mm-hmm and almost a minerality
which we call petrichor like wet rain or
wet pavement after the rain I live near
Chuck and he sees me sniffing pavement
all the time and that’s why I know
that’s just true Chuck what colors you
think this is it’s gotta be a white
absolutely good job what’s the riedel it
has to be Chardonnay he’s a natural
it’s a Chardonnay indeed from Dutton
Estate Winery our dear friends out in
Sebastopol hmm lovely let’s go on to the
red wine here let’s go on to the second
wine here
I had to give you that one not a rose a
no well actually no I’m snowing it’s
actually an IPA mm-hmm I’ll chug
what does it smell like Oh
dense summer fruits a little sugar
brilliant thing though with this wine
don’t you notice like a dark fruit
darling cherry plum blackberry etc mixed
with these really bright vibrant fruits
mm-hmm fresh cranberry like on the
Thanksgiving table yes let’s taste it
and with this one we want you to breathe
a little bit of air through it we call
this aspiration cannons mm-hmm a bit of
astringency that’s so natural what else
do you notice you know there’s a
characteristic of wine light system
which is Chirico watch there we go
there’s that beautiful almost black
cherry mixed with that lemon lime
cinnamon and vanilla casting going yes
gorgeous wine what color is this
it’s a red man what’s the varietal this
has to be a fabulous Noma County Pinot
it absolutely is this is a Pinot Noir
made by Kathleen Inman
it’s her estate Oh G V Pinot from her
property out on Piner road Chuck you’ve
done a very abbreviated abbreviated
version of this usually I take these for
about an hour to an hour and a half but
what did you think of it what and how do
you feel with the blindfold now that
we’ve done this well I’m a visual artist
and I look for beauty in everything
around me it reminds me that great wine
like great art shares beauty with us
only using different sensory channels
and now when I go back out into the real
world the cited work I’m going to have
to use all of my other channels a lot
more absolutely Chuck thank you very
much thank you for joining me we use
vision for 85 to 90 percent of the
information we acquire about our
surroundings that means that we have
four other perfectly good senses to
obtain 10 to 15% of the information
around us it’s a lot of senses and not
very much information I know eyesight is
very valuable and if you have it you
should definitely use it with that said
I hope my remarks have allowed you to
open your mind to the rich and more full
opportunity that life can can offer and
be like if you use all five of your
senses
you may taste how it feels to experience
the non visual world so profoundly if
you’ve ever experienced true love you’ve
experienced this feeling true deep
compassionate love is so rich intense
and unlike anything else
this is the closest I can come to
describing the richness fulfillment and
beauty I feel every day
as I navigate the world around me
without vision we live right now in a
society that can be limited thinking
about the theme of this conference a
world without limits and I tell you that
is a boring person some might think of
my lack of eyesight as a limit it has
made my world drop limits I feel like
the world is so open to me but I think
that if we all work together to use our
senses in a very positive way you too
and we all will notice that we are
living a life that is less limited and
richer it’s time you drive to the coast
drive anywhere or really do anything
roll down the windows smell the air feel
the hate that wind in your hair and be
sensitive and absorbent to everything
that’s going on around you trust your
eyesight but not so much that it makes
your other senses lazy thank you very
much
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