Synesthesia
Synesthesia is an ideation warm-up exercise for context sharing: it helps participants share useful personal or project context.
How to run it
- Participants may choose to examine an existing topic or explore a new idea. It may be something as simple as “the interface for our new site” or as complex as “the user experience.”
- Participants choose or are randomly assigned one of the five senses: see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Also consider including as choices temperature, position, and motion.
- Participants are given a few moments to interpret a topic from the perspective of their sense and to move on to the other senses as they see fit. They then describe to the group what they perceived. For example:
- “The interface is warm to the touch. And it tastes like oranges.”
- “When the app launches, it’s as if I can hear an orchestra tuning up to perform. But I can’t see anything; I’d like to see what they’re doing.”
- “The user experience stinks. It smells like a stack of dusty papers, and there is no motion. I wanted to move forward but kept getting slowed down.”
- The Synesthesia exercise gives participants a chance to describe in visceral, memorable terms how they feel about an object or how they imagine it to be. It can uncover overlooked aspects of an idea or product or lead to new ones.
- The source of the Synesthesia game is unknown.
- Duration: Any Participants: Any Difficulty: Medium by Violeta Moran Use Method Goal - Develop creativity - Change perspectives Materials Instructions For this activity, each participant will choose a word and then create a different definition of it.
Run this exercise live
The facilitator console stays in this browser. Its QR handoff is a short-lived participant snapshot containing only public exercise instructions, phase, prompt, and timer state.
What participants need now
Materials:
This is a participant-safe snapshot, not a response form. It sends nothing back to the facilitator.
Prompts to use +
Participants may choose to examine an existing topic or explore a new idea. It may be something as simple as “the interface for our new site” or as complex as “the user experience.”
Participants choose or are randomly assigned one of the five senses: see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Also consider including as choices temperature, position, and motion.
Participants are given a few moments to interpret a topic from the perspective of their sense and to move on to the other senses as they see fit. They then describe to the group what they perceived. For example:
“The interface is warm to the touch. And it tastes like oranges.”
“The user experience stinks. It smells like a stack of dusty papers, and there is no motion. I wanted to move forward but kept getting slowed down.”
Duration: Any Participants: Any Difficulty: Medium by Violeta Moran Use Method Goal - Develop creativity - Change perspectives Materials Instructions For this activity, each participant will choose a word and then create a different definition of it.
Run this with your AI assistant +
Works with Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, or your own local model: paste this prompt and your AI will co-facilitate this exercise with you.
Adapt this exercise for my exact room. Exercise: Synesthesia. Readiness: Publishable Draft. Core moves: Participants may choose to examine an existing topic or explore a new idea. It may be something as simple as “the interface for our new site” or as complex as “the user experience.”; Participants choose or are randomly assigned one of the five senses: see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Also consider including as choices temperature, position, and motion.; Participants are given a few moments to interpret a topic from the perspective of their sense and to move on to the other senses as they see fit. They then describe to the group what they perceived. For example:; “The interface is warm to the touch. And it tastes like oranges.”. Return a concise facilitator script with timing, wording, safety notes, and remote/in-person adjustments.
Origin unverified
- Where we observed it: The strongest current observations come from Gamestorming; aggregators are listed as additional observations, not origin proof. (2 sources observed, including Gamestorming, SessionLab.)
- What that means: we track where an exercise has been observed in public sources. We do not claim to know who created it, or how popular it is.
- No efficacy claims: appearing in this library is not a claim that the exercise is proven effective. Facilitator judgment and context decide whether it works for a given room.
- Corrections: if you have evidence of an earlier or more accurate source, read our methodology and trust boundary and tell us.