Using psychophysiological measures to evaluate the multisensory and emotional dynamics of the tea experience

In recent years, the user experience has gradually become the main focus in the design of consumer products, rather than the products’ features and functions. Therefore, designers should consider the user experience to be of paramount importance in the development of a successful product. In addition, user experience is not static, but rather it changes over the different stages of usage due to the variations in consumers’ sensory modalities and emotional responses. Therefore, this study aims to use psychophysiological measures to explore how the interaction between the user and the product at each different stage influences sensory modalities and emotional responses to products. The experiment was conducted in five stages according to the different levels of interaction for two tea products. Subjective data about sensory modalities and emotions related to the products were collected. In addition, the research gathered objective data to examine the feasibility of relating physiological measures to subjective experiences. The results showed that the tea experience tends to be dynamic over the different stages of usage, demonstrating important variations in the different sensory modalities and emotional feedback. In addition, physiological signals such as galvanic skin response, have been shown to be of potential value for evaluation of the user’s emotional reaction. Our findings could be important not only for a theoretical understanding of sensory and emotional feedback in a product experience but also as a measure of user experience using psychophysiological methods.