Sentisering

Sentisering is a term used in design, marketing, and media studies to describe the deliberate amplification of sensory cues in information and environments to influence perception, engagement, and memory. The concept sits at the intersection of multimodal design, cognitive psychology, and communication theory. Etymologically, sentisering combines the root sense or sentiment with the suffix -isering, mirroring other process-oriented terms such as urbanisering or digitalisering, though its precise usage varies by field.

Practically, sentisering involves increasing the salience of visual, auditory, tactile, or olfactory cues through careful choices in color, contrast, rhythm, sound design, haptics, and spatial arrangement. The aim is to make content more noticeable, memorable, and emotionally resonant, while attempting to balance cognitive load and accessibility.

Applications include advertising campaigns that use multi-sensory cues, user interface design that guides attention through sensory feedback, data visualization that relies on perceptual encoding, and educational tools that reinforce learning through multi-sensory modalities. In digital contexts, sentisering may occur through interface micro-interactions, immersive media, and ambient information design.

Critics warn that sentisering can verge on manipulation, raise ethical questions about consent and transparency, and disproportionately affect users with heightened sensory processing or disabilities. Effective sentisering requires attention to accessibility, diversity of sensitivity, and cultural variance in sensory perception.

See also: sensory marketing, multimodal design, user experience, cognitive load, neuroaesthetics.