Abstract

The PhD research carried out is concerning the culture of design material, which nowadays is increasingly characterized by a particular attention to environmental aspects and to a sensitive approach for several human needs (functional, relational and perceptive ones). The research has been started from the need to provide students and designers with a material library and a virtual database, called MATto (MATerial at Politecnico di Torino), about innovative materials useful for the industrial product and project. The innovative aspect of this new library and database MATto is that the materials included are described using perceptive adjectives and ecoefficiency indicators at same time. For these reasons during the course of Industrial Design several materials has been analyzed using different tools such as Eye-Tracking and Sensotact® by Renault. Analyzed materials are deeply involved in the development of project concepts: a project could be tested by making, e.g., two prototypes that can be realized in different materials characterized by the same ecoefficiency aspects. Following, using different tools such as Eye-Tracking it’s possible to read these prototypes in order to know which one is best perceived, in order to understand on equal eco-efficiency terms which one coincides with the user’s imagery. The paper will deal with the explaining of the methodology to approach the evaluation of materials and the innovative metaproject MATto library and database.