Olfactory interfaces are no longer at the margins, they are emerging as a central area of HCI research and design. Yet, while technology and interaction studies have advanced, there has been limited collective engagement with scent as a design material and its potential to shape multisensory experiences.

Follow Your Nose invites researchers, designers, and practitioners to explore scent in a collaborative, practice-led context. This meet-up builds on the momentum of recent developments in olfactory HCI, aiming to elevate smell from a supporting interface to a design material in its own right. We bring together communities from HCI, design, engineering, psychology, sensory science, marketing, and the arts to explore:

• How smell integrates into multisensory experiences

• Opportunities for novel design and research directions

• Ways to advance a sustainable, “third wave” of digital smell research

⚡ Bring your own scent! We encourage you to bring along any scent you find notable, whether it’s beloved, unexpected, familiar, or even disliked. 

• Specific timing (M19 on the CHI website) will be confirmed later and published on this website and in the final CHI 2026 programme.

• Meet-Ups are free with conference registration, open to all CHI attendees, and require no prior submission.

• Primary Contact: Marianna Obrist (m.obrist@ucl.ac.uk)

• Marianna Obrist: She is Professor of Multisensory Interfaces at UCL Department of Computer Science, investigating touch, taste, and smell as interaction modalities in Human-Computer Interaction, applied to VR/AR, automotive, and health/wellbeing. She is also co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) of Hynt Labs, pioneering scent technology for sleep.  Author of 150+ publications and co-author of Multisensory Experiences (Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2025), she advances understanding of the senses in technology.

• Ceylan Beşevli: She is a Design Researcher and Research Fellow in UCL Computer Science, focusing on smell for health and wellbeing. Her work explores digital smell training, long-term engagement, and emerging multisensory interfaces like acoustophoresis. She holds a PhD in Interaction Design from Koç University and has taught design thinking to executives and developed a course on Play & Innovation.

• Emanuela Maggioni: She is a leading expert in olfaction and sensory science with over 18 years of research and consultancy experience, including working with Unilever, Benetton and IFF. She has over 50 scientific publications and a PhD in Psychology of Smell Perception and Emotions and is a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow. She is also the Co-Founder and CEO/CTO of Hynt Labs Limited, pioneering novel digital scent technology, specifically for improved quality of sleep. More at hynt.net

• Mei Kei Lai: She is Dean & Associate professor at the Faculty of Art and Design in Macao Polytechnic University. Her research interest is exploring the possibilities of smell as the medium to create interactive user experience. She has been combining art practice with technology in the experiments including art exhibition, gameplay, reading, family bonding, virtual environment, smell map, etc. Her works have been presented in HCI, SIGDOC, TEI, ISEA, etc. She also held workshops related to digital olfaction. She is the author of the monograph “Sniff the Future: Digital Olfactory Arts in Daily Life” and “Oh Sniff the Whiff: Exploring the Smellscapes in Macao.”

• Carlos Velasco: He is an Associate Professor of Marketing at BI Norwegian Business School, where he co-founded the Centre for Multisensory Marketing. He holds a D.Phil. in Experimental Psychology from Oxford University and has worked on postdoctoral and consulting projects across Europe, Asia, and the Americas. His research sits at the intersection of psychology, marketing, and human–computer interaction, focusing on the principles and applications of multisensory experiences. He co-wrote the book "Multisensory experiences: Where the senses meet technology" (Oxford University Press) and "Digital dining: New innovations in food and technology" (Springer Nature). Carlos has also collaborated with global companies on multisensory design. More at carlosvelasco.info