Introduction to Materials Experience

If we regard materials as "actors" playing a particular role that designers have assigned to them, as emphasized by Professor Ashby in his Foreword, then we soon begin to understand that some materials are chosen for lead roles in certain applications, while others go unnoticed as essential background actors. Deciding upon the role that a material will play within a product is one of the large challenges faced by designers. It necessarily entails a focus away from designing for producteproduct interactions toward designing for usereproduct interactions and consequent experiences. Thus, when a decision is to be made on the materials to be used in a new design, competence is needed in predicting and defining both the experiential qualities and the performance qualities of materials. Within new product development teams, it is the (industrial) designer who usually assumes responsibility to tackle "human factors" in relation to materials selection. In other words, it is the designer's remit to use materials to create particular experiences for people in particular contexts of use: to define the materials experience.