Retail design para concepção de pontos de venda sensíveis ao humor: oportunidades para a regulação do humor em experiências gastronômicas

Abstract

The transformation of trade since the post-war period (1945) has propelled the emergence of retail design. Retail design has a strategic role in projecting customer experience at the physical point of sale (POS), as it is responsible for the creation of contexts full of stimuli that promote significant experiences, which impact directly on customer experience. The evolution of retail and consumption has made it possible for those experiences to be a central factor for the comprehension of customer behavior, since the consumption of experiences is motivated by the search for pleasant moments which add value and meaning to people’s lives. Beyond stores, in the food retail industry, restaurants and bars are being projected under the experiential perspective in order to meet more than a basic need, but also a demand for a more interesting, pleasant and invaluable life. Thus, retail experience has acquired an emotional dimension and retail design has started to play a relevant role at the design of POSs that contribute to customer satisfaction as well as to their psychological well-being, mainly in long-lasting experiences, such as the gastronomic ones. Based on experience design and emotional design, it is possible to understand that mood is highlighted as a “problem” in the comprehension of the relationship between product and emotion. Therefore, being aware that the atmosphere of the POS influences customer behavior, the problem of this research arises: would it be possible to contribute to the design process of food POSs that are sensitive to customer mood in order to generate more pleasant and meaningful consumption experiences? Aiming at answering that question, we propose the creation of a group of retail design strategies that can help designers’ project actions for the conception of food retail POSs that are sensitive to customer mood. Through an investigation that encompassed customers’ assessment of mood and interviews, in addition to a workshop carried out with designers in order to cocreate strategies, and an assessment conducted with psychologists aiming at discussing the results, the research obtained a group of 41 opportunities to design food POSs which are sensitive to customer mood.