Developed collaboratively by three designers, this visual narrative — presented as a scrolling web comic —  explores some of the everyday implications of a future in which olfactory technology is ubiquitous, normalised, and embedded within phones. The narrative uses two key lenses to examine the potential impacts of this ubiquity: a character-based narrative exploring how smell-sensing could affect interpersonal relationships and cultural norms, and a user-interface visualisation that displays the interactions between the user and the app. This application visualization explores how the data collected by olfactory tech might be used to analyse users and the spaces they inhabit. We were particularly interested in exploring what small and unexpected frictions or benefits could be found in the mundane details of daily life.

Furthermore, the potential privacy impacts are explored by the analysis of shared workspaces, with individuals no longer present being analysed by the app. We also developed concerns regarding information overload, where the app adds layers of information and analysis to already busy scenarios. This layered information could lead users to interpret their own world differently, seeing and sensing their world in new ways. This visual narrative critically explores a breadth of positive and negative changes to how people interact with their personal technology and the world around them.