Blog

Making Sense of Research in our Sensory Centre

Spring is in the air, Boris has set out his roadmap to reopening the country, the kids have gone back to school and we are looking forward to welcoming our clients and participants back to our Covid-secure facilities in Wetherby next week.

During "Lockdown 3.0" we have not only been kept busy sending out products for our panel of testers to try at home, but we have also spent our time planning the next stage of development for our Sensory Centre.

Even with the largest sensory facility in the North of England, the unprecedented demand we saw when government restrictions were relaxed last Autumn has led to further expansion which will see us double our number of sealed testing booths.

Sensory Research Booths

With installation well underway (look out for our grand-revealing in the next few weeks), we have combined our expert sensory knowledge with our clients' diverse testing requirements to ensure our Sensory Centre will cover their wide variety of needs for sensory research.

Within the centre, each sealed booth will be equipped with humidity and temperature controls / monitoring, allowing us to ensure fragrances are tested under control conditions. Our large and versatile booths are equipped with a sink, washing machine and tumble dryer enabling us to replicate the different stages of the "at home" laundry process right here in our facility. Our booths are also suitable for household research, the sinks and work surfaces are ideal for testing a variety of home-cleaning products whilst the washing machines are also exchangeable for automatic dishwashers.

The Sensory Centre can be utilised as part of, or independently of our Innervisions viewing facility, which offers a modern test kitchen, wet rooms, a viewing room, and discussion rooms, all of which allow us to cover the testing of a very wide range of products. With the two facilities housed in different buildings opposite each other, we have the best of both worlds - being able to run two tests concurrently in separate buildings or a multi-stage test utilising both facilities.

At all stages of the testing process our team of friendly, experienced staff ensure all our participants are guided expertly through each test.

We can't wait to re-open our doors and see you all soon.

Jenny Summerfield
Sensory Centre Manager