A methodology for the analysis of the influence of odors on the users' evaluation of industrial products

The sense of smell has a great importance in our daily living: today pleasant odors are used to elicit positive emotions in users. In the marketing area, a lot of works have been done concerning the use of odors for communicating information related to products as household cleaners and foods. In the area of Virtual Reality (VR), several researches have focused on presenting odors in virtual environments. This approach can represent an easy and flexible means for evaluating industrial products characteristics. This research work aims at evaluating in which way odors can influence the users’ evaluation of products and if studies on the influence of odors on the users’ evaluation of products in a VR environment and in a real environment can be comparable. For this purpose, an experimental framework has been defined, a wearable olfactory display has been developed and experimental testing sessions have been performed.