People feel better when they are in control of their environment. If people can reconfigure furniture, adjust the temperature, change the lighting, choose where to sit, and have options to complete tasks, they experience a place more positively.
When completing a simple task, music can increase performance, but decrease performance when the task is complex. With control, individuals can create the musical environment that works best for them. (Research Design Connections (RDC) October 2002, “Background Music: Bane or Benefit”)
Customers who feel more in control when dining, because, for example, they are able to stake out a “territory” for their group, have greater feelings of pleasure and involvement in the restaurant experience. (RDC April 2003, “Food for Thought: Restaurant Design”)
In office environments, people prefer to control their ambient environments, and the presence of healthy, comfortable ambient conditions has been tied to workplace satisfaction and performance. (RDC October 2003, “The Office Environment: Designing for Success")
When creating environments for dementia patients and their families, a variety of seating options gives families appropriate places to interact based on their visiting style and loved one’s condition. (RDC Winter 2004, “Dementia Design: Continuing to Make a Difference”)
Personal control over the physcial worksapce leads to higher perceived group cohesiveness and job satisfaction. (RDC Spring 2006, “Control Matters”)
People who see themselves as generally indepdendent from other people think that angular shapes are more attractive, and people who perceive themselves as primarily interdependent with others find rounded shapes more attractive. (RDC Summer 2006, “Self-Concept and Shape Preference”)
People viewing abstract art can find the experience frustrating and may dislike the art, but descriptions can help. (RDC Fall 2006, “Got Abstract Art? Then Put Up Signs”)
NOT DESIGNING FOR ALL USERS:
As good designers, we are all concerned about the experiences people have in the places we create. Unfortunately, we can forget how varied the people who will eventually inhabit and use our spaces actually are.
Acoustics is particularly important in elementary schools, because children have more difficulty differentiating words from background noise. But, did you know that children are also prone to temporary hearing loss because of middle ear infections, with some studies reporting that 13 – 15% of students in a classroom are affected by an ear infection at any one time, making great acoustics an even more important factor in school design? (RDC July 2002,
“Enhanced Learning: School Acoustical Design”)
Sometimes people who use buildings work in the background. Have you ever considered what truck and delivery drivers think of the design of the loading spaces and docks where they have to work? We covered building design from a truck driver’s point of view. (RDC October 2002, “Truck Driver Design”)
For most buyers, their image of home includes its neighborhood. Several new studies investigate homeowners preferences for traditional or neotraditional neighborhoods, suburban-style neighborhoods, and open space conservaton neighborhoods to determine factors that affect home preference and price. (RDC Winter 5,
“Owner Preferences and Neighborhood Design”)
The physical environment can be a source of engagement and learning for young children or it can inhibit learning opportunities. In out of home child care, both center and family-based, the physical environment should support learning as much as possible. How does learning and the physical environment intersect? (RDC Spring 2005,
“Expert's Corner - How Child Care Spaces Support Learning”)
For most children, directed learning occurs in a specific place they inhbit every school day - their school building. Two research studies add to our understanding of how these physical places can affect children's learning related behaviors and performance (RDC Spring 2005,
“School Buildings Influence Learning Outcomes”)
After reviewing a series of published studies relating housing characteristics and manifestations of poor mental health (such as childhood behavioral problems and depression in adults), researchers were able to draw several conclusions about the relationship between housing characteristics and mental health (RDC Spring 2005,
“Housing and Well-Being”)
Researchers investigated current and idealized family gathering spaces through interviews with parents of elementary-school-aged children. (RDC Spring-Fall 2005,
“Family Gathering Spaces”)
Color Symbolism has an important influence on response to particular environments. There are a variety of meanings for particular colors in different parts of the world. (RDC Summer 2006,
“Cross-Cultural Color Use Key”)
Increasing numbers of individuals with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are working in offices and they have specific workplace needs. (RDC Winter 2007,
“ADHD and Workplace Design”)
NOT THINKING COUNTER-INTUITIVELY:
Every designer brings their own preconceived notions to their design projects. But designers and users can experience places differently and in ways that may be inconsistent with established design practices.
Since most right-handed people turn right at a crossing, it makes sense to put the highest-price merchandise or most interesting features on the right, correct? Not if you are designing in Great Britain. In the United Kingdom where cars travel on the left side of the road, only 45% of right-handers turned right at action decision points. (RDC April 2003, “Right Turns, Left Turns”)
Open-office plans are popular and can help people work in new and different ways. Yet, a study of 13,000 office workers found that the most important design feature in an office environment, from the workers’ perspectives, was being able to concentrate without distractions – something that’s not possible in most open-office spaces. (RDC April 2003,
“Supporting Concentration in Work Environments”)
Adding a marked crosswalk will make crossing safer for pedestrians, but only in certain situations. If not properly placed, marked crosswalks can actually increase pedestrian accidents. (RDC Spring 2004, “Pedestrian Safety: Is the Simple Solution the Right One?”)
Radio-frequency tracking devices attached to grocery carts have shown that people move through a grocery store in a different manner than was previously thought. (RDC Winter 2006, “Understanding Movement Through Grocery Stores”)
Increases in temperature can actually be perceived as decreases in temperature if they are coupled with variations in the velocity of air movement in a space. (RDC Summer 2006, “Speed of Ventilated Air Important”)
When people are emotionally ambivalent or simultaneously experiencing positive and negative emotions, creative thinking can be enhanced. (RDC Fall 2006, “Unusual Spaces May Indeed Increase Creativity”)
Design of all types deals with the core of human experience. The fundamentals of human place experience are consistent across all sorts of spaces, and there are synergies between research done in each design field. Architects can learn from landscape architects, landscape architects can learn from architects, industrial designers can learn from interior designers, interior designers can learn from architects, and so on.
Accessibility design does not begin or end at the building door. Creating accessible places means considering best-practices across disciplines, including designing functional approaches and entrances for a full range of weather conditions, even for those with mobility problems. (RDC, April 2003, “Welcoming Places for All: Thinking Beyond ADA Guidelines”)
Interior and exterior place design can both have a significant impact on crime control. (RDC January 2003, “Controlling Crime Through Design”)
Environmental psychologists and ergonomists have spent a lot of energy developing optimum operating room designs and other disciplines can learn from their experiences. (RDC July 2003, “Lessons from Operating Rooms”)
One widely held tenet of better building design is the importance of learning from the successes and deficiencies of current or just-built projects. Often such learning has been done during a post-occupancy evaluation (POE). Several articles cover new approaches to eliciting and implementing project feedback (RDC, Winter 2006, “Building and Project Feedback: New Approaches”)
Splashes of colored light in the nightskies can be pleasant or unpleasant, just as colors and lights can affect indoor spaces. One recent article discusses use of colored lights outdoors, while a second discusses the use of color and light in hospital spaces. (RDC, Summer 2006, “Color and Light, Indoors and Out”)
Research has uncovered several ways that physical environments can encourage people to climb stairs (RDC, Fall 2006, “Getting People to Use the Stairs”)
IGNORING THE TOTAL PLACE EXPERIENCE:
We do not experience places one sense at a time, but holistically – all of our sensory mechanisms are continuously employed. Each sense can be used to augment or reduce the impression being created by the other senses.
Colors of maximum saturation attract the most attention when paired with any background color and colors with maximum saturation and brightness are most preferred. (RDC Summer 2004, “Color: Attention-Getting and Emotional Responses”)
A new literature review on collaborative work environments provides a useful and concise summary of research on how people collaborate and what we know about design interventions to facilitate work collaborations (RDC Spring 2005, “Collaborative Work Environments”;
A comprehensive resource examining lighting quality and perception and their relation to work performance outcomes (RDC Spring 2006, “Lighting and Daylighting Knowledge Review"
Any pleasant smell will improve the performance of a retail space, but some smells might be more effective than others. (RDC Fall 2006, “Good Smell Never Hurts”
Curved contours on objects are preferred to sharp angled contours - which has implications for the design of places and furniture (RDC Fall 2006, “Humans Prefer Curved Visual Objects”
BONUS - UNDERESTIMATING THE VALUE OF NATURE:
People need to take mental breaks continuously during the course of the day. Positive distractions and access to nature can provide just the sort of refreshing nudge people need for optimum place experience and performance.
Housing complexes with more trees and grass present have been linked to lower violence levels (RDC January 2002, “Designing with Nature to Reduce Crime") and supportive environments with natural elements can be used to reduce attention deficit symptoms in children. (RDC April 2002, “ADD Children: Nature’s Helping Hand")
Aquariums have repeatedly been shown to positively influence state of mind, with the general population and with special populations, such as Alzheimer’s patients. (RDC October 2003, “More Evidence of the Positive Influence of Aquariums”)
The ability of elderly people to concentrate is improved by visits outdoors, although visits outdoors do not seem to influence blood pressure or heart rates. (RDC Spring 2005, “Garden Visits”)
The aim of a healing garden is to provide a place of respite and renewal. Yet such a goal has to include the different needs of patients, visitors, and staff. An evaluation of how 3 healing gardens at a pediatric cancer center were used and appreciated provides insight into maximizing the use of healing gardens for diverse populations. (RDC Winter 2006, “Healing Gardens: Case Study Results and Design Implications”)
Nature in and around residential homes can be valued in many ways. Two studies emphasize the value of nature on ameliorating proximity to retail land uses and increasing neighborhood satisfaction. (RDC Spring 2006, “Nature and Neighborhoods”)
People are happier when looking at trees than inanimate objects and are happiest when viewing spreading trees. (RDC Fall 2006, “Spreading Tree Forms Desirable”)
AND. . . designers can’t ignore the value of learning from others’ experience by reading post-occupancy evaluations.
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