It is always dangerous to discuss stereotypes, but some for information sources
are worth noting. Information derived by governments or government-sponsored
groups (such as the National Research Council—Canada—Construction,
for workplace-design-related information) is rigorously conducted and wellrespected
in academic circles. Government labs generally work very hard
to be impartial and hire well-skilled researchers. Studies conducted in the
United States and funded by the National Science Foundation or the National
Institutes of Health also are very credible. Statistical information from census
bureaus and maps and information about the natural environments provided
by geological surveys are also very strong. Additional government agencies
that release reliable, design-related information include the General Services
Administration (www.gsa.gov), cabinet departments, and special commissions
appointed to investigate specific topics. In the European Union, the Community
Research and Development Information Service (http://cordis.europa.eu)
reports on all EU-sponsored research.
Sources of Secondary Information
There are a slew of study centers affiliated with reputable, not-for-profit universities
that are trusted information providers, including:
• Center for the Built Environment at the University of California, Berkeley
(www.cbe.berkeley.edu)
• Lighting Research Center, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (www.irc
.rpl.edu)
• Advanced Building Systems Integration Consortium, Carnegie Mellon
University (www.cmu.edu/architecture/research/centers.html)
• Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan (www.isr.umich.edu)
• MIT Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (www.media.mit.edu)
• The PlaceLab, House_n, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (http://
architecture.mit.edu/house_n/placelab.html)
• Center for Assistive Technology and Environmental Access, Georgia Institute
of Technology (www.catea.gatech.edu)
• Architecture Research and Design Center, Texas Tech University (http://
arch.ttu.edu/wiki/ARDC)
• Institute on Aging and Environment, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
(www4.uwm.edu/iae)
• Open University (http:/libeprints.open.ac.uk)
Many schools of architecture and interior design also have strong research
programs and share their findings with individuals who contact them.
It can be tricky to determine the value of information from not-for-profit
organizations. A good rule of thumb is that the more professors that are on the
board of directors of a group, the more likely it is that the information they provide
has been thoroughly vetted and is both reliable and valid. It is also a good
sign if a paper on a not-for-profit’s website can be clearly identified as being
authored by a faculty member at a reputable, not-for-profit university or someone
who has published books with a commercial publisher (not a vanity press).
Some organizations that are good sources of information include:
• American Institute of Architects (AIA) (www.aia.org)
• American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers
(ASHRAE) (www.ashrae.org)
• American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) (www.asid.org)
• American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) (www.asla.org)
• Center for Health Design (www.healthdesign.org)
• Cyburbia (urban planning; www.cyburbia.org)
• Human Centred Design Institute (http://hcdi.brunel.ac.uk)
• International Interior Design Association (IIDA) (www.iida.org)
• Public Library of Science (www.plos.org)
• Rocky Mountain Institute (www.rmi.org)
• Society of College and University Planning (www.scup.org)
Again, this is only a partial list of nonprofit organizations that conduct
reputable research and/or share research with their members or the general
public.
Association websites are key sources of the information that can be used
for competitive advantage—because they show you what your competition will
be presenting. To be distinctive, you need to be clever and move beyond these
standard precedents and insights to those that will really set you apart—using
the techniques presented in this book.
Cautions When Using Secondary Information
Organizations might have an agenda that they are trying to further, which
casts suspicion on the information they are sharing. Sometimes, such a motivation
is readily identifiable because of a group’s name, logo, or material on
its website, for example. If an organization has a reason to potentially distort
research findings (it sells a product that is heavily used in an environment being discussed, most generally), it will be clear from text and links on its
website. Look for connections to literature published either by academic
researchers or by well-respected, commercial publishers. Being an advocacy
group does not mean information presented is incorrect; just that it should be
verified through another source.
If you cannot determine who originally did research that you find mentioned
on websites or other sources that would be useful to you as you answer
design questions, it would be best not to use that material. The potential problems
that could result from being embarrassed by that data later outweigh
potential usefulness to its use.
Reports become more credible when important research is referenced or
when information provided about the writers indicates that they have been
exposed to, and know how to use, the body of literature in a field. An advanced
degree from a reputable university provides that credibility. Reports that are
well-reviewed by objective sources are also highly credible.
When groups advance individuals as experts, independently investigate
their credibility by doing online searches of a few of their publications and
speaking engagements, for example, and by networking with your colleagues.
Look for a track record of quality performance and beware of associations to
sources that might be motivated to present biased information. More information
on vetting an expert is included in the “Expert Interviews” section of Chapter 5.
When reviewing data on a website, also consider the following factors,
which influence the credibility of the information reported:
• Are the writers identified? Do they seem professionally qualified? Is there
any way to contact the author?
• What is the apparent audience for the website?
• Does the information agree with that from other sources? Always look for
more than one data source when working to reach a design solution.
• Are references or a bibliography of some sort available so the sources of
the information provided can be assessed? Are the references recent?
• It is generally a good idea to judge a website by its appearance—people
who take care to present a good impression on their web pages can usually
be counted on to be meticulous about the information they provide as well.
Websites that seem to be designed (as opposed to haphazard) are more
likely to be good sources of information than those whose owners haven’t
taken care in their preparation.
• Does the site make a good impression in terms of being organized and free
from grammatical and spelling errors? Is the writing clear?
• Who owns the server where the information is found? This can be determined
using metatags and Whois tools.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
RESEARCH FOR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Marketing, also known as seeking and securing work, is a research assignment
in and of itself. How a design firm promotes its capabilities has a lot to
do with the focus of the design firm’s work, employee qualifications, interests,
aspirations, resources, and unique competencies. Design firms may either
be considered specialists—designers that have deep knowledge in a specific
project type, or as generalists—designers with broad and varied knowledge
of multiple project types. Regardless of where on the spectrum a design firm’s
marketing emphasis resides, a research-based marketing approach supports
a design firm in developing and demonstrating competency. This applies to
both familiar project types and types that are untried, and it differentiates the
design firm from its competition.
A research-based marketing approach supports the design firm in focusing
its marketing resources on issues important to a specific audience. Here,
research accomplishes two primary goals.
First, through research, the design firm identifies the types of clients, projects,
and geographic locations for which it hopes to work. The firm is able to
analyze the project type based on understanding the context that surrounds
this project area—the business, economic, and/or social drivers, for example,
and the motivations that surround the target industry both internally and
externally. Additionally, a research approach allows the design firm to compare
these contextual issues with the design firm’s strengths and interests to
assess whether there’s an alignment between both.
Second, for both the specialist and generalist, a research-based marketing
approach supports the design firm’s ability to differentiate from the competition
as it demonstrates the design firm’s ability to home in on the important
aspects of a potential client’s area of need. In this scenario, a research-based marketing process shifts the discussion away from what the design firm
accomplished in the past to what the design firm is capable of accomplishing
in the future—an important distinction that positions the design firm in a proactive
and prospective role of seeking and securing new work.
Example: Since A Design has focused most of its ten years in practice on
the design of daycare facilities, to expand the firm’s market reach, the designers
engage in a research process to investigate the context around other project
types that have similar goals and conditions as a daycare center.
The design team starts with what it knows. With its extensive body of
knowledge on daycare centers that includes demographic changes of communities
that have resulted in the growth of the daycare market, the design
team explores whether these growth projections apply to other markets. From
the research, A Design discovers a corresponding growth in the K–12 school
market.
As a next step, the team conducts additional research on the K–12 school
market—it looks at precedents of the most recent K–12 school projects and
assesses some of the unique aspects of each project. It conducts literature
searches that provide insights into the leading thinking around education models
and how place can influence educational performance.
Next, the design team conducts an audit of the design firms being commissioned
for the most recent K–12 projects in the region. It examines the core
competencies of these practices and maps these competencies with A Design’s
own practice approach. This serves useful in helping the team identify knowledge
sources (like consultants familiar with this project type) and resources
that they currently have compared to those they acknowledge are missing.
From this research exercise, A Design assesses the risks and rewards in
expanding the firm’s emphasis to the K–12 market. A Design identifies the
firm’s strength as having a strong body of knowledge in “play as learning”
facilities but lack credentials in executing the formal aspects of education. From
the team’s earlier research, it knows that the best practices in K–12 education
combine both play and formal learning styles.
From the results of the research and assessment exercise, A Design
decides that the firm’s option is to either add this competency by hiring a senior
designer with a minimum of five years experience in K–12 education projects
or by aligning with consulting firms with a breadth of experience in education
facilities.
A research-based marketing strategy is how a designer or design firm
demonstrates competency around a specific project type. Research builds
greater understanding around the explicit concerns of the stakeholders and
provides the design firm with a source of knowledge that informs the content
and direction of the marketing proposal.
Understanding the cultural, regional, economic, and behavioral issues
specific to a proposed project type advances the marketing strategy by
enabling the design team to frame the proposal and presentations through a filter of the conditions unique to the stakeholders. Here, knowing the sources
of knowledge and innovations that surround this project type informs the
design team regarding demographic conditions, site context, technological
advances, and industry best practices. In addition, how external and internal
economics factor into a potential client’s considerations when commissioning
an architectural project affects how the design team develops a marketing
strategy that is distinct and focused on the aspirations and goals of the proposed
stakeholders.
Example: Having only two short weeks to respond to a request for qualifications
(RFQ) for a new K–12 school building, the A team assembles to identify
the goals for the research to inform the RFQ. First, the team identifies the client
and project-specific issues to analyze: who makes up the client team, what are
its areas of expertise, what experience (if any) has the client team had on similar
building projects, and what were the project costs, schedule, and technologies
used in these similar building projects?
Next, the team drills down into what is unique to this education facility. It
uncovers demographic information for the project location and identifies the
key drivers specific to this school board. Through literature reviews, it uncovers
how the school board and community are expecting the new facility will
address these goals:
• Support the district in establishing higher test scores for math and reading.
• Build a sense of community through a vital sports facility.
• Create an emphasis for the school district as a high-performing school
through curricular and extracurricular activities.
As a next step, the team identifies the broader cultural, economic, and
environmental areas of K–12 research. It explores the current precedents and
best practices in K–12 education—what are the objectives for educational facilities
today and in the future. The firm also looks to access information on new
learning and teaching strategies, as well as innovative uses of technology in
primary education.
With this information in place, the team is better prepared to shape the
content of its proposal on issues that might be of direct concern to these decision
makers.
In today’s competitive economy, a research-based marketing approach
supports a firm’s ability to differentiate among the competition and/or expand
into new markets by enhancing a firm’s past project experience with insightful
new knowledge relevant to a potential client. It establishes a firm’s credential
based on knowledge, insight, and understanding. It can create new
collaborative opportunities with consultants, experts, and colleagues. Finally,
a research-based marketing approach supports a firm’s ability to achieve
an innovative interpretation of a project through understanding the context
behind the client’s goals.
in and of itself. How a design firm promotes its capabilities has a lot to
do with the focus of the design firm’s work, employee qualifications, interests,
aspirations, resources, and unique competencies. Design firms may either
be considered specialists—designers that have deep knowledge in a specific
project type, or as generalists—designers with broad and varied knowledge
of multiple project types. Regardless of where on the spectrum a design firm’s
marketing emphasis resides, a research-based marketing approach supports
a design firm in developing and demonstrating competency. This applies to
both familiar project types and types that are untried, and it differentiates the
design firm from its competition.
A research-based marketing approach supports the design firm in focusing
its marketing resources on issues important to a specific audience. Here,
research accomplishes two primary goals.
First, through research, the design firm identifies the types of clients, projects,
and geographic locations for which it hopes to work. The firm is able to
analyze the project type based on understanding the context that surrounds
this project area—the business, economic, and/or social drivers, for example,
and the motivations that surround the target industry both internally and
externally. Additionally, a research approach allows the design firm to compare
these contextual issues with the design firm’s strengths and interests to
assess whether there’s an alignment between both.
Second, for both the specialist and generalist, a research-based marketing
approach supports the design firm’s ability to differentiate from the competition
as it demonstrates the design firm’s ability to home in on the important
aspects of a potential client’s area of need. In this scenario, a research-based marketing process shifts the discussion away from what the design firm
accomplished in the past to what the design firm is capable of accomplishing
in the future—an important distinction that positions the design firm in a proactive
and prospective role of seeking and securing new work.
Example: Since A Design has focused most of its ten years in practice on
the design of daycare facilities, to expand the firm’s market reach, the designers
engage in a research process to investigate the context around other project
types that have similar goals and conditions as a daycare center.
The design team starts with what it knows. With its extensive body of
knowledge on daycare centers that includes demographic changes of communities
that have resulted in the growth of the daycare market, the design
team explores whether these growth projections apply to other markets. From
the research, A Design discovers a corresponding growth in the K–12 school
market.
As a next step, the team conducts additional research on the K–12 school
market—it looks at precedents of the most recent K–12 school projects and
assesses some of the unique aspects of each project. It conducts literature
searches that provide insights into the leading thinking around education models
and how place can influence educational performance.
Next, the design team conducts an audit of the design firms being commissioned
for the most recent K–12 projects in the region. It examines the core
competencies of these practices and maps these competencies with A Design’s
own practice approach. This serves useful in helping the team identify knowledge
sources (like consultants familiar with this project type) and resources
that they currently have compared to those they acknowledge are missing.
From this research exercise, A Design assesses the risks and rewards in
expanding the firm’s emphasis to the K–12 market. A Design identifies the
firm’s strength as having a strong body of knowledge in “play as learning”
facilities but lack credentials in executing the formal aspects of education. From
the team’s earlier research, it knows that the best practices in K–12 education
combine both play and formal learning styles.
From the results of the research and assessment exercise, A Design
decides that the firm’s option is to either add this competency by hiring a senior
designer with a minimum of five years experience in K–12 education projects
or by aligning with consulting firms with a breadth of experience in education
facilities.
A research-based marketing strategy is how a designer or design firm
demonstrates competency around a specific project type. Research builds
greater understanding around the explicit concerns of the stakeholders and
provides the design firm with a source of knowledge that informs the content
and direction of the marketing proposal.
Understanding the cultural, regional, economic, and behavioral issues
specific to a proposed project type advances the marketing strategy by
enabling the design team to frame the proposal and presentations through a filter of the conditions unique to the stakeholders. Here, knowing the sources
of knowledge and innovations that surround this project type informs the
design team regarding demographic conditions, site context, technological
advances, and industry best practices. In addition, how external and internal
economics factor into a potential client’s considerations when commissioning
an architectural project affects how the design team develops a marketing
strategy that is distinct and focused on the aspirations and goals of the proposed
stakeholders.
Example: Having only two short weeks to respond to a request for qualifications
(RFQ) for a new K–12 school building, the A team assembles to identify
the goals for the research to inform the RFQ. First, the team identifies the client
and project-specific issues to analyze: who makes up the client team, what are
its areas of expertise, what experience (if any) has the client team had on similar
building projects, and what were the project costs, schedule, and technologies
used in these similar building projects?
Next, the team drills down into what is unique to this education facility. It
uncovers demographic information for the project location and identifies the
key drivers specific to this school board. Through literature reviews, it uncovers
how the school board and community are expecting the new facility will
address these goals:
• Support the district in establishing higher test scores for math and reading.
• Build a sense of community through a vital sports facility.
• Create an emphasis for the school district as a high-performing school
through curricular and extracurricular activities.
As a next step, the team identifies the broader cultural, economic, and
environmental areas of K–12 research. It explores the current precedents and
best practices in K–12 education—what are the objectives for educational facilities
today and in the future. The firm also looks to access information on new
learning and teaching strategies, as well as innovative uses of technology in
primary education.
With this information in place, the team is better prepared to shape the
content of its proposal on issues that might be of direct concern to these decision
makers.
In today’s competitive economy, a research-based marketing approach
supports a firm’s ability to differentiate among the competition and/or expand
into new markets by enhancing a firm’s past project experience with insightful
new knowledge relevant to a potential client. It establishes a firm’s credential
based on knowledge, insight, and understanding. It can create new
collaborative opportunities with consultants, experts, and colleagues. Finally,
a research-based marketing approach supports a firm’s ability to achieve
an innovative interpretation of a project through understanding the context
behind the client’s goals.
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Sensory Science
Rigorous scientific research has established associations between certain sensory
experiences such as colors, scents, sounds, patterns, and psychological
responses. Relatively insignificant seeming changes in physical environments
can have a dramatic influence on our experience of space. When we are discussing
these factors, and space design in general, it’s important to keep in
mind that space never acts alone in producing a psychological response; it is
always one of a collection of inputs that determine an emotional state.
Aromas have a primordial influence on our psychological experience of
space, and scents have a direct effect on our emotional well-being. In general,
we prefer to be in pleasantly scented spaces, as opposed to unpleasantly
scented ones, and being among those pleasing aromas boosts our mood—so
we think more broadly and behave more positively to our fellow men. People
spending time in a pleasantly scented place feel that they have been there
less time there than people in an unscented space—which has repercussions
for the design of cashregister stations in stores. Although pleasant aromas differ
culturally, generally floral or fruity scents are well received. The olfactory
experience in a space needs to be carefully considered, pleasant aromas of
baking cookies in a commercial venue can boost mood, but exactly the same
smell in a chemotherapy suite at the local hospital can nauseate patients.
Research has shown that certain scents can facilitate particular activities.
For example, research by Bryan Raudenbush and his students at West Virginia’s
Wheeling Jesuit University has determined that smelling peppermint
encourages us on to greater physical exertion and keeps us from feeling tired
while we’re at it, so it is a great smell to use in a gym.12 Other researchers have
found that lemon has roughly the same effect, but on mental activities. Lemon
also soothes agitated mental patients and is associated with fewer reports of
health problems in doctors’ offices, which might reduce hypochondria or cause
needed symptoms to be omitted from discussions. Spiced apple scents lower
the blood pressure of healthy people three to five points, while green apple
decreases feelings of claustrophobia—it’s the scent to use in that tiny powder
room. The aromas of almond, lavender, marjoram, and vanilla are relaxing.
Vanilla is so relaxing that it is used in some MRI suites to calm patients. The
scents of marjoram and lavender also reduce anxiety, along with lime and
cypress. Rosemary and peppermint smells energize us, so that we put in that
little extra effort. These effects continue even after we no longer consciously
perceive a smell.
An increasing number of places are being scent-scaped, with scents being
wafted into areas throughout the day. Scent-scaping has been used in Japanese
offices to beat the 3:00 lull in body rhythms for some time. Muzak now
has a division that provides scents for public spaces.
Finding out about these rigorously researched responses to smell is difficult
in the general press because of the number of often unsubstantiated aromatherapy claims crowding data sources such as the Internet. Searches on
scholar.google.com can reveal some of this information.
Sounds influence us emotionally, just as scents do. Although people
from different national cultures may find different sorts of music pleasant,
our psychological responses to the sounds we hear is consistent. For example,
we all find slow, soft, complex music sad, which makes sense because
when we are sad our vocal cords relax, and that muffles our voice. Sad people
speak softly, just as angry or happy people do the opposite. Fast, loud,
simple music is perceived as joyful, while fast, loud, complex music is seen
as angry. Relatively slow, quiet, nonvocal music reduces reactions to stressful
situations (such as group meetings) but faster music increases alertness
and arousal.
Fast and slow are determined in relation to what is roughly our resting
heartbeat, or 50 to 70 beats per minute (bpm). We find things that pulse at that
rate relaxing. It’s not surprising that sounds with that rhythm calm us, because
when we hear a sound our heart starts to beat in time to it, and 50 to 70 bpm
is a relatively relaxed pulse rate. Not just music with 50 to 70 bpm is calming.
Fountains or mobiles that make noise with the same beat have the same effect
on us. Music with 30 to 50 bpm is very relaxing.
High-pitched music, and noises in general, are happy and playful, while
lower-pitched ones are sad and serious. We find midrange sounds, such as
harps and classical chamber music, calming and higher-frequency sounds
such as violins and voices, energizing.
Since our ears evolved from our skin, it’s not surprising that we have similar
responses to patterns of touch (massage) that we do to sounds. We also find
touching more textured surfaces more energizing than feeling smoother ones
underfoot, for example.
In North America and Europe vision is the most carefully monitored
sensory channel, but not all cultures are as focused on information that they
receive through their eyes. Regardless of national culture, we have consistent
responses to information that we do indeed see. Colors that are less saturated
and more bright, generally light and cool colors, are more relaxing and pleasant,
while more saturated and less bright colors, generally darker or warm
colors, are more invigorating and less pleasant. Colors that are lower in saturation
contain more gray. Maroon is a less-saturated red than fire-engine red.
Although responses to color saturation and brightness are universal, different
national cultures vary in their associations to particular hues.
We feel significantly warmer when we look at warm colors than cool ones,
which should influence color palettes for healthcare facilities, for example.
Monochromic color schemes are more relaxing, unless they are done in
shades of whites and beiges. White/beige monochromes are upsetting to the
general population.
When colors from across the color wheel are combined, the effect is more
energizing than when colors near each other on the color wheel are used together. Colors can also be combined in patterns, and we find complex ones
more energizing than simple ones.
It’s not just the color of walls and surfaces that influences us emotionally;
the color of light does so, as well. Warm white light increases our energy level
as well as improving our mood (see Figure 3.8). People exposed to warm white
light (3000K) reporter a stronger preference for resolving interpersonal conflicts
through collaboration than people exposed to cool white light (4200K). People
take more risks under warm white light than any other light colors, while coolwhite
lighting is more stressful to workers than full-spectrum lighting. When
the colors of light are varied during the course of the day to mimic the natural
light cycle, the well-being and emotional state of workers and patients is
improved (see Figure 3.9). Daylight improves worker performance, retail sales,
and mood, in general. Patients in day-lit rooms require less pain medicine.
When lighting levels are lower, we are less active and speak more softly.
We react to seen objects in predictable ways. Shiny finishes are more
invigorating and matte finishes more relaxing. We find pointy shapes less
pleasant to be around than curvy ones. Spiky shapes overhead can be particularly
unsettling, as can patterns composed of Vs.
Rhythm, symmetry, balance, and harmony in an object or space improve
its aesthetic appeal to members of the general public and are generally relaxing.
The golden ratio is generally pleasing and is so special that one particular
part of the brain is dedicated to perceiving it.
Usually, we prefer to be in spaces that intrigue us but don’t scare us. We
like places that we can understand and that we can find our way in easily—
they should be moderately complex and novel. We prefer that these pleasant
places include elements such as paths that gently curve out of view that lead
us forward and through the space. We have many other consistent responses to
architectural elements, including ceiling height, wall curvature, room configuration,
corner angles, window design, and entryways into a space.
experiences such as colors, scents, sounds, patterns, and psychological
responses. Relatively insignificant seeming changes in physical environments
can have a dramatic influence on our experience of space. When we are discussing
these factors, and space design in general, it’s important to keep in
mind that space never acts alone in producing a psychological response; it is
always one of a collection of inputs that determine an emotional state.
Aromas have a primordial influence on our psychological experience of
space, and scents have a direct effect on our emotional well-being. In general,
we prefer to be in pleasantly scented spaces, as opposed to unpleasantly
scented ones, and being among those pleasing aromas boosts our mood—so
we think more broadly and behave more positively to our fellow men. People
spending time in a pleasantly scented place feel that they have been there
less time there than people in an unscented space—which has repercussions
for the design of cashregister stations in stores. Although pleasant aromas differ
culturally, generally floral or fruity scents are well received. The olfactory
experience in a space needs to be carefully considered, pleasant aromas of
baking cookies in a commercial venue can boost mood, but exactly the same
smell in a chemotherapy suite at the local hospital can nauseate patients.
Research has shown that certain scents can facilitate particular activities.
For example, research by Bryan Raudenbush and his students at West Virginia’s
Wheeling Jesuit University has determined that smelling peppermint
encourages us on to greater physical exertion and keeps us from feeling tired
while we’re at it, so it is a great smell to use in a gym.12 Other researchers have
found that lemon has roughly the same effect, but on mental activities. Lemon
also soothes agitated mental patients and is associated with fewer reports of
health problems in doctors’ offices, which might reduce hypochondria or cause
needed symptoms to be omitted from discussions. Spiced apple scents lower
the blood pressure of healthy people three to five points, while green apple
decreases feelings of claustrophobia—it’s the scent to use in that tiny powder
room. The aromas of almond, lavender, marjoram, and vanilla are relaxing.
Vanilla is so relaxing that it is used in some MRI suites to calm patients. The
scents of marjoram and lavender also reduce anxiety, along with lime and
cypress. Rosemary and peppermint smells energize us, so that we put in that
little extra effort. These effects continue even after we no longer consciously
perceive a smell.
An increasing number of places are being scent-scaped, with scents being
wafted into areas throughout the day. Scent-scaping has been used in Japanese
offices to beat the 3:00 lull in body rhythms for some time. Muzak now
has a division that provides scents for public spaces.
Finding out about these rigorously researched responses to smell is difficult
in the general press because of the number of often unsubstantiated aromatherapy claims crowding data sources such as the Internet. Searches on
scholar.google.com can reveal some of this information.
Sounds influence us emotionally, just as scents do. Although people
from different national cultures may find different sorts of music pleasant,
our psychological responses to the sounds we hear is consistent. For example,
we all find slow, soft, complex music sad, which makes sense because
when we are sad our vocal cords relax, and that muffles our voice. Sad people
speak softly, just as angry or happy people do the opposite. Fast, loud,
simple music is perceived as joyful, while fast, loud, complex music is seen
as angry. Relatively slow, quiet, nonvocal music reduces reactions to stressful
situations (such as group meetings) but faster music increases alertness
and arousal.
Fast and slow are determined in relation to what is roughly our resting
heartbeat, or 50 to 70 beats per minute (bpm). We find things that pulse at that
rate relaxing. It’s not surprising that sounds with that rhythm calm us, because
when we hear a sound our heart starts to beat in time to it, and 50 to 70 bpm
is a relatively relaxed pulse rate. Not just music with 50 to 70 bpm is calming.
Fountains or mobiles that make noise with the same beat have the same effect
on us. Music with 30 to 50 bpm is very relaxing.
High-pitched music, and noises in general, are happy and playful, while
lower-pitched ones are sad and serious. We find midrange sounds, such as
harps and classical chamber music, calming and higher-frequency sounds
such as violins and voices, energizing.
Since our ears evolved from our skin, it’s not surprising that we have similar
responses to patterns of touch (massage) that we do to sounds. We also find
touching more textured surfaces more energizing than feeling smoother ones
underfoot, for example.
In North America and Europe vision is the most carefully monitored
sensory channel, but not all cultures are as focused on information that they
receive through their eyes. Regardless of national culture, we have consistent
responses to information that we do indeed see. Colors that are less saturated
and more bright, generally light and cool colors, are more relaxing and pleasant,
while more saturated and less bright colors, generally darker or warm
colors, are more invigorating and less pleasant. Colors that are lower in saturation
contain more gray. Maroon is a less-saturated red than fire-engine red.
Although responses to color saturation and brightness are universal, different
national cultures vary in their associations to particular hues.
We feel significantly warmer when we look at warm colors than cool ones,
which should influence color palettes for healthcare facilities, for example.
Monochromic color schemes are more relaxing, unless they are done in
shades of whites and beiges. White/beige monochromes are upsetting to the
general population.
When colors from across the color wheel are combined, the effect is more
energizing than when colors near each other on the color wheel are used together. Colors can also be combined in patterns, and we find complex ones
more energizing than simple ones.
It’s not just the color of walls and surfaces that influences us emotionally;
the color of light does so, as well. Warm white light increases our energy level
as well as improving our mood (see Figure 3.8). People exposed to warm white
light (3000K) reporter a stronger preference for resolving interpersonal conflicts
through collaboration than people exposed to cool white light (4200K). People
take more risks under warm white light than any other light colors, while coolwhite
lighting is more stressful to workers than full-spectrum lighting. When
the colors of light are varied during the course of the day to mimic the natural
light cycle, the well-being and emotional state of workers and patients is
improved (see Figure 3.9). Daylight improves worker performance, retail sales,
and mood, in general. Patients in day-lit rooms require less pain medicine.
When lighting levels are lower, we are less active and speak more softly.
We react to seen objects in predictable ways. Shiny finishes are more
invigorating and matte finishes more relaxing. We find pointy shapes less
pleasant to be around than curvy ones. Spiky shapes overhead can be particularly
unsettling, as can patterns composed of Vs.
Rhythm, symmetry, balance, and harmony in an object or space improve
its aesthetic appeal to members of the general public and are generally relaxing.
The golden ratio is generally pleasing and is so special that one particular
part of the brain is dedicated to perceiving it.
Usually, we prefer to be in spaces that intrigue us but don’t scare us. We
like places that we can understand and that we can find our way in easily—
they should be moderately complex and novel. We prefer that these pleasant
places include elements such as paths that gently curve out of view that lead
us forward and through the space. We have many other consistent responses to
architectural elements, including ceiling height, wall curvature, room configuration,
corner angles, window design, and entryways into a space.
Fundamental Human Needs and Space Design
There is a movement within design research to increase the pleasure of interacting
with places and objects. Whether you are for or against pleasure, it is
useful to know potential sources of it as well as displeasure so that you can
fine-tune a place design accordingly.
Patrick Jordan has written the definitive book on pleasurable design,
and he outlines four types of pleasure (building on the work of Lionel Tiger).6
Physio-pleasure is tied directly to body sensory experiences. Any of the senses
can be pleasurably or unpleasurably stimulated by a physical environment.
Appropriate and possible physio-pleasure to be provided in a space can be
determined through conversations with users, literature reviews, and material
research, for example. Socio-pleasure comes through relationships with
other people, and a product or place can provide this directly or indirectly.
Chairs that can be arranged so that it is easy to talk in desired groups can
supply socio-pleasure, but so can souvenirs that spur passersby to pause and
ask questions. Objects can signal social affiliations, general social situation,
and status, all of which are linked to socio-pleasure; this sort of information
facilitates social interactions as well as informing them. Psycho-pleasure ties
directly to cognitive and emotional response to a product or place. Psychopleasure
can be related to usability of an object or place. Ideo-pleasure is the
sort associated with green design, among other worthy causes. It ties in to
more abstract concepts such as social values and aesthetics, for example.
These descriptions indicate how something can be pleasurable, but not
why it is. It is also important to realize that these types of pleasure are perceived
and actually derived through the interactions of a person and an object
or place; they do not exist independent of that interface. So, designing pleasurable
places requires knowledge of the people that will use them as well as how
experience is influenced psychologically.
Humans have fundamental psychological needs that must be satisfied
in their lives in general. Places can help to satiate them and research such as
literature reviews can provide details about how. Maslow outlined a hierarchy
of needs that languished, not respected by the mainstream scientific world, for
some time. It has recently been substantially revalidated and shown to have a
significant influence on human behavior.7 The official ranking, from most basic
(bottom of the pyramid) to higher order needs (at the top of the pyramid) is:
immediate physiological needs, safety, love (which includes both affection and
group membership), respect, and self-actualization (achieving higher-order,
personally meaningful goals). More psychological resources are available to
pursue goals further up the pyramid when those of lesser importance are satisfied;
the order in these needs can be satiated is not as rigid as the pyramid
arrangement may infer.
Maslow’s hierarchy can guide design in a basic way. People must feel
comfortable enough in a space to lower their self-protective defenses if they
are going to socialize or think broadly enough to self-actualize, for example.
People are unlikely to want to interact with others in a location in which their
backs are exposed or unprotected. More substantive conversations occur in
spaces like a high-backed restaurant booth than at a table and chairs thrust
into the middle of a corridor (see Figure C.4 in the color insert). A literature
review of seating arrangements in which people feel safe would uncover this
information.
Reiss has also outlined a collection of basic human desires or drives.8
Many can be addressed through place design and also influence economic and
other decision making. Reiss’s list is a lot like Maslow’s and can be used in a
similar way: to focus a literature review and ensure that a place being created
meets as many of these needs as possible. The desires and drives Reiss discusses
include:
• Power—place has an inherent ability to inspire awe and to indicate power
resulting from a social role (such as being a judge).
• Curiosity—a space can facilitate your fundamental human need to grow
and develop as a person, as outlined by Lawrence and Nohria in 2002.9
• Independence—spaces help us influence our own destiny, particularly
when we have fundamental control over them.
• Status—place can communicate social status both directly and through
more nuanced, culture-based nonverbal communication.
• Social contact—human beings are pack animals, and even introverts
shrivel when they are deprived of social contact with others. Spaces
design can facilitate or hinder social interaction.
• Vengeance—environments that denigrate others, for example, are
vengeful.
• Honor (meaning tradition in this context)—communicating tradition
and the extent to which it is valued is one of the things that places can
do well.
• Idealism—early examples of green design show how easily places can be
used for idealistic purposes.
• Physical exercise—exercise is much more feasible in some environments
than others
• Romance—space design can encourage or discourage romance
• Family—through home and playground design, for example, we can interact
with our families in ways that we value.
• Order—the rise of the closet organizing industry shows how much we
crave order in our lives.
• Eating—although we can chew and swallow food almost anywhere, it is
certainly more comfortable to do so in some environments, such as those
that are pleasant temperatures and humidity
• Acceptance—following social conventions when we design earns us
acceptance from others (well, at least from many of them).
• Tranquility—we have a fundamental need to restock our levels of mental
energy, and places can help us do just that.
• Saving—places are financial investments, and they also stockpile other
items of value to us.
Using Environmental Psychology
Although researchers have been investigating how human beings respond
to and interact with the world around themselves for a long time, work in
the area was coordinated in the 1960s with the formalization of the field
of environmental psychology. Environmental psychologists focus on how
human attitudes and behaviors are influenced by the physical world. That
means they are experts at answering questions such as what colors will relax
people, how wide a dining table should be, and how to arrange furniture in
a space. They are also concerned with issues such as ceiling height and how
personality and culture (organizational and national) influence our placebased
experiences.
In this part of the chapter, you will learn the sorts of things about human
experience of place that you should consider when a project begins, how
design can influence place experience, and why you should find out about
the specific people who will use a space under development. We will discuss fundamental human needs that must be recognized in design. Some needs to
be recognized are more project specific and others more universal.
The paragraphs that follow highlight the dangers of extrapolating from
your own experiences to those of others when spaces are being designed. It
discusses a number of ways in which place-based experiences become customized
on the group and individual levels. Generally, you will not be the
user of the spaces that you are designing, so it is important to design with an
awareness of the types of human-place interactions possible. We all share
the same fundamental place-based needs, but don’t all satisfy them in the
same ways.
The single most important lesson that you should take away from this
discussion is the immense number of experiences that different people, all of
whom are perfectly “normal,” can be having in the same space at exactly the
same moment.
Sensing the World
People generally have the same sets of sensory apparatus, but all those sets
of eyes and ears don’t work in the same way. Let’s use vision as an example.
Some people can pick out more details in a scene, at greater distances, than
others. Some people, most of whom are men, have a distorted perception of
colors—that is, they are color blind. Research also shows that our psychological
state influences what we perceive—items more consistent with our current
thoughts are more likely to be noted. Even the language that we speak
influences distinctions that we see between colors and the information in our
physical world that we tend to note. So there are lots of filters between what
we believe that we see and what could more objectively be identified in our
environment.
All of our sensory experiences are filtered, not just our visual ones. Not
all sounds are heard, all scents smelled, or all tactile experiences registered.
Some of the experiences that you provide for users of spaces you develop will
be lost on them—and it’s difficult to predict which ones. What people perceive
is what they expect to experience. We form stereotypes of places just as we
do of people, and it is those stereotypes that we live through unless material
clearly inconsistent with our expectations is extremely obvious. We will
“remember” objects and architectural features as being present in a space if
those objects and features are consistent with our expectations—even if they
weren’t actually there. If we expect a friend’s stylish mom to live in an apartment
with a sophisticated design, we will remember Miro prints on the walls
and Mies chairs—even if the prints on the walls really are Kinkades and the
chairs are from Ethan Allen.
We build our stereotypes based on our own experiences and those of
others that are reported to us. They evolve somewhat as our life experiences
accumulate.
Features of Well-Designed Spaces
All well-designed places satisfy five fundamental performance criteria and
having the right information ensures that spaces you design serve their
users well:10
1. Comply—Provide the support required to complete desired activities.
2. Communicate—Supply information that the person controlling the space
would like to share about who they are, and provide opportunities for
speaking with other people.
3. Challenge—Facilitate the growth and development of the users of the
space.
4. Continue—Remain desirable over time.
5. Comfort—Relieve tension and prevent potentially stressful situations from
developing initially.
Each of these criteria can be addressed in a number of ways. Research
stimulates design ideas—but developing design options is what you’ve been
doing through the design process all along. After reviewing these five performance
criteria, you will better understand the sorts of issues that you need to
probe when researching and the implications of what you learn when you do.
Comply
People can want to accomplish a lot of different things in a space either one at
a time, simultaneously with other goals, or in a clearly anticipatable sequence.
Through programming-type research you will learn more about what sorts of
functions a space will serve.
Some of the ways that a space can support desired activities are clearer
than others. There are certain elements required in a cooking area—an ability
to heat food, clean up, and store cooking tools, for example. Different traditions
can satisfy these requirements in different ways, however. While a kitchen in
the United States does not seem complete without an oven, kitchens in Mexico
generally do not have one; there is a tradition of baking in the oven in the
United States, but th is not the case in Mexico. Basic functions can be satisfied
in different ways in different contexts.
Other ways that a space can support desired actions are less intuitively
obvious. Let’s work through a detailed example. In workplaces, there are people
doing information work as well as people doing knowledge work. We can define
information work as tasks that, after they are initially learned, don’t require a lot
of concentration to carry out. Knowledge work, by contrast, requires concentration,
even after some time in a job—it continuously presents new challenges.
Generally, working in a telephone call center is information work, while strategic
planning and research/development are knowledge work. If knowledge work is to be done well, the people engaged in it need to be able to concentrate,
and the enemy of concentration is distraction.
When we are doing our best to concentrate on knowledge work, the most
significant problems arise from audio distractions. Perfect silence is also a
problem—it is a very odd experience for humans, and we also find it distracting.
Words spoken in languages we understand are most disturbing. The most
effective mechanisms currently available to designers to blunt the impact of
audio distractions on concentration are walls. People often listen to music on
headphones to avoid being distracted, but listening to music on headphones
has also been shown to reduce cognitive performance. If designers can’t create
floor-to-ceiling walls around people who need to concentrate, the only
available mechanism to help people do so are fully enclosed (this means floor
to ceiling sound-proofed walls) touchdown spaces that can be used on an asneeded
basis. These touchdown spaces are not optimal, however, as continuity
of physical environments and presence of personalizing items enhances cognitive
performance.
Environmental distractions, such as from overheard conversations, create
continuing problems for those exposed to them. After being distracted, it takes
information/knowledge workers from 15 to 25 minutes to return to whatever
they were doing before they were distracted. This happens after each and
every distraction, so sitting near a coffee pot or along a central circulation
route can be deadly for workplace effectiveness.
Individuals working in an open environment do speak more to each other
than people in spaces where they have less visual access to each other—but
they spend less time talking about work related issues. It is important that
people working together have these non-work-related conversations so that
they bond to each other and form a more cohesive workgroup. In an open work
environment these bonding conversations can become so extensive that they
reduce productivity, however.
Research has shown that regardless of age, no one multitasks very
well—humans who want to do well need to stick to the mono-task world, as
mentioned earlier in this chapter. In addition, people of various generations
move through the same work-life phases, each of which is linked to specific
behaviors—
and that must be reflected in the design of any work area. When
developing a workplace, it is important to consider career and life states and
not generations. Instead of designing for particular generations, it is more
appropriate to create spaces in which people can do specific tasks well.
When we are doing anything, we perform best if we are at an optimal
(moderate) mental energy use level. Unfortunately, there is not a neat equation
that can be used to determine whether a person is at this level, but
people are fairly good at comparing their performance from one situation
to the next. They can accurately report these relative performance levels
if they feel safe in divulging this information. Doing a task that requires
more focus uses more mental energy than one that requires less focus. In addition, being in a relatively more complex physical environment requires
more energy than being in a less complex environment. That’s why we can
sit on a veranda (a relatively complex environment) and read recreationally
(in this case we are at our optimal energy level), but need to move inside
into a space without many audio, visual, or other sensory complexities when
we are doing technical (textbook style) reading. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 provide
examples of a relatively less complex interior environment, as well as a moderately
complex one.
Some environments are more energizing and some are more relaxing.
Not surprisingly, many of the spatial elements that energize us put us in a
more negative mood, while those that are more relaxing put us in a more
positive one.
Negative and positive moods are appropriate for different sorts of activities—
each is desirable at particular times. Positive moods broaden our thinking,
while negative ones narrow it. Positive moods are therefore great if we’re
doing a task that requires creativity or that people get along well with each
other or reach a compromise (e.g., through negotiation). Negative moods are
better when it is desirable for people to focus on completing a rigidly defined
set of tasks. Unpleasant sounds, flashing lights, and bad smells put us in a
negative mood, for example, all else being equal.
In emergency situations, adherence to an established protocol is crucial,
just as it is when doing things such as reviewing information provided and
looking for deviations from norms or processing data in other very straightforward,
specified ways.
Talking with the people who will use a space that you are developing
will help you understand their intended use for the space. This will direct you
in determining what mood the space should encourage. Place attributes that
have been associated with negative moods should be used sparingly, even in
areas where a negative mood is desirable, and not at all (if possible) in spaces
where positive moods are optimal.
Often, people paying to develop a new space say they want a place in
which people are more productive or creative or healthier. Productivity, creativity,
and health generally ensue when a space is designed so that it helps
people complete desired activities in a positive mood. An integrative review of
the social science research reveals that a positive mood in a space is likely to
result if, for example:
• Colors used are not very saturated but relatively bright.
• Colors from near each other on the color wheel are used in combination.
• Forms and lines are generally curving.
• Textures are subdued and there is little variety in them.
• Lighting levels are relatively bright and warm.
• People are at desired distances from each other (the appropriate distance
varies by situation and by national culture).
• People in the space have views out over nature or a similarly refreshing
scene.
• Natural materials, such as wood with relatively light-colored stains and
varnishes are used in the area
• Daylight is present in the space.
A positive mood also improves the functioning of our immune system—
so the mood of both patients and caregivers is very important and their environments
must also be designed to optimize their mood. An extensive body
of research has investigated the best artwork for patient, clinical, and staff
spaces in a hospital, for example.
The influence of mood on shopping behavior is complex. When people are
shopping for fun, it is best for sales if the environment puts them in a positive
mood. When people are doing utilitarian, purpose-driven shopping—stopping
to buy milk and eggs on their way home from work—that positive mood isn’t as
important and efficient store layout is highly desirable.
Communicate
Human beings are communicating all the time—sometimes with words,
sometimes without. Many messages sent nonverbally are trusted more
than spoken ones. Involuntary nonverbal messages, such as fleeting facial
expressions and body movements, gain credibility because they are often
revealed involuntarily and then filtered. Nonverbal messages are sent
through the items we choose to add to our environments as well as how
we modify the spaces themselves. Photos of families or boats, furniture
arrangements, and new marble flooring all are introduced to send particular
messages.
It’s hard to know what’s being communicated nonverbally unless you
share cultural affiliations with the person transmitting information (see Figure
3.3). As we grow up in a culture we not only learn its spoken language,
but also its unspoken one. We come to understand things such as cultural
associations to particular colors, how far we should stand from other people
in various situations, and how to isolate ourselves politely from other people
when we need to mull over recent events and order our thoughts. Many of
the place-based rules we learn are tacit knowledge, so we don’t really have
a mechanism to share them with people from other cultures, except by using
them, so it’s difficult for people from other cultures to pick them up in any
organized way.
Although the specific “words” being used to communicate nonverbally
through space vary by cultures (group and national), spaces are used to convey
both personal and group identity (See Figure 3.4). The messages we broadcast
help us feel comfortable in a space. They also change over time. The skills and mechanisms we use to send those messages evolve, as well. The importance of
the messages perseveres throughout our lives and in all of the spaces that we
control, whether we are at home, work, in a hospital bed, or visiting the commercial
establishments we chose to frequent.
Challenge
We all have a personal development plan—one of our fundamental drives as
human beings is to grow and develop in a personally meaningful way. Place
design can help us achieve this objective. Space can provide the acoustical
isolation we need to become a cellist or the chemistry lab we need to develop
new pyrotechnics, or spaces to socialize with our children so we can guide
them to develop as human beings—as we expand our parenting skills. Our
drive to grow and develop as a person is particularly pertinent when designing
residential environments.
Continue
A space that evolves as its users and their needs changes is desirable. Particularly
during tough psychological times, people prefer familiar spaces and
things. A space that continues to meet user needs can be a significant emotional
support. Spaces that support us psychologically over time are also better
financial investments and more earth friendly. Flexibility can be provided
through architectural elements as well as furnishings that are easy to reconfigure
Comfort
Several attributes of a space can help us feel comfortable. When people
control their experience in a space, they are comfortable in it. Control is the
ability to make choices as to a space’s physical form and attributes. Personalizing
a space with family photographs establishes control, which can also be
exercised through changing the temperature or turning on a light. Control
is at a fundamental level making a choice.11 (Iynegar’s research on choice is
discussed in Chapter 2.) Groups need control of their environments, just as
people do.
When we feel in control of a situation, our stress levels decrease and we
are more likely to be in a positive mood than when we’re without control. We
are also more apt to feel satisfied and comfortable in the space when we feel in
control of it (see Figure 3.5).
Feeling in control of our personal space is really important to us psychologically.
Personal space is a set of zones that surrounds us and varies from situation
to situation. The sizes of the personal spaces that people maintain vary by culture and perceptions of the situation—excellent arguments for providing
a range of seating options, some on wheels, so people can maintain their
desired distances from each other. Although the exact size of our personal
spaces in different contexts varies by culture, each society maintains zones
that range from one very close one that we allow only intimates to enter, to
spaces used in formal situations that are much larger. We respond negatively
when our personal space is broached and become tense. We will also adopt
behaviors that help us ignore the troubling situation. We make
sure not to catch the space invader’s eye, for example, and orient our body so
we are not directly facing them—think about what happens in an elevator
(even if it only has two people in it), and you get the idea.
We also control territories. Territories provide us with a home base in
which we can decompress, and when we do, we broaden our thought processes.
Both individuals and groups have territories and each polices intrusions
into their spaces. Some barriers between territories are more traditional,
such as walls and doors, and others are more symbolic. An edge of a rug, a
change in ceiling height, or the area lit by a particular light can all serve as
territorial markers.
Crowding results when we lose control of the number of people nearby.
Crowding is an impression and not an objective reality. Crowding by definition is an unwanted collection of people around us—what we’re happy to experience
with our family is not so pleasant on the subway with strangers, for example.
When we feel crowded, we work to escape. Interestingly, architectural
features that would, at least theoretically allow us to escape from a situation,
such as windows, make us feel less crowded. So do higher ceilings. It’s as if
when our personal space on the sides is compressed, the lost space can bubble
overhead like a balloon and we can still be comfortable.
Human beings are social animals. Even the most introverted introvert
needs human companionship from time to time. Time to time is key here. We
want to socialize as desired and be alone as desired. Being alone has a lot of
psychological value—mainly because it helps us reflect on what’s happened to
us recently and integrate our thoughts and experiences with others that we’ve
had. It also allows us to relax. Privacy is so important that in today’s open
workplaces employees seem to be taking shelter in bathroom stalls. Being
pack animals we are also very attuned to differences in status.
When we’re doing the sort of intense thinking that is characterized as
knowledge work for a long time, we become mentally exhausted. We can
restock our levels of mental energy and reduce stress by looking at scenes we
find fascinating and effortless to observe. Fish tanks and fire work well. So
do views of outdoor spaces reminiscent of our life on the savanna. The places
observed should not be totally wild jungles, but should have sections that look
like a gentle meadow bordered by trees, with a few leafy trees in the middle of
the space (see Figure 3.9). Best is to look out over this live, and from a higher
vantage point onto the scene described, but the image also has benefits when
used in two dimensions as artwork.
with places and objects. Whether you are for or against pleasure, it is
useful to know potential sources of it as well as displeasure so that you can
fine-tune a place design accordingly.
Patrick Jordan has written the definitive book on pleasurable design,
and he outlines four types of pleasure (building on the work of Lionel Tiger).6
Physio-pleasure is tied directly to body sensory experiences. Any of the senses
can be pleasurably or unpleasurably stimulated by a physical environment.
Appropriate and possible physio-pleasure to be provided in a space can be
determined through conversations with users, literature reviews, and material
research, for example. Socio-pleasure comes through relationships with
other people, and a product or place can provide this directly or indirectly.
Chairs that can be arranged so that it is easy to talk in desired groups can
supply socio-pleasure, but so can souvenirs that spur passersby to pause and
ask questions. Objects can signal social affiliations, general social situation,
and status, all of which are linked to socio-pleasure; this sort of information
facilitates social interactions as well as informing them. Psycho-pleasure ties
directly to cognitive and emotional response to a product or place. Psychopleasure
can be related to usability of an object or place. Ideo-pleasure is the
sort associated with green design, among other worthy causes. It ties in to
more abstract concepts such as social values and aesthetics, for example.
These descriptions indicate how something can be pleasurable, but not
why it is. It is also important to realize that these types of pleasure are perceived
and actually derived through the interactions of a person and an object
or place; they do not exist independent of that interface. So, designing pleasurable
places requires knowledge of the people that will use them as well as how
experience is influenced psychologically.
Humans have fundamental psychological needs that must be satisfied
in their lives in general. Places can help to satiate them and research such as
literature reviews can provide details about how. Maslow outlined a hierarchy
of needs that languished, not respected by the mainstream scientific world, for
some time. It has recently been substantially revalidated and shown to have a
significant influence on human behavior.7 The official ranking, from most basic
(bottom of the pyramid) to higher order needs (at the top of the pyramid) is:
immediate physiological needs, safety, love (which includes both affection and
group membership), respect, and self-actualization (achieving higher-order,
personally meaningful goals). More psychological resources are available to
pursue goals further up the pyramid when those of lesser importance are satisfied;
the order in these needs can be satiated is not as rigid as the pyramid
arrangement may infer.
Maslow’s hierarchy can guide design in a basic way. People must feel
comfortable enough in a space to lower their self-protective defenses if they
are going to socialize or think broadly enough to self-actualize, for example.
People are unlikely to want to interact with others in a location in which their
backs are exposed or unprotected. More substantive conversations occur in
spaces like a high-backed restaurant booth than at a table and chairs thrust
into the middle of a corridor (see Figure C.4 in the color insert). A literature
review of seating arrangements in which people feel safe would uncover this
information.
Reiss has also outlined a collection of basic human desires or drives.8
Many can be addressed through place design and also influence economic and
other decision making. Reiss’s list is a lot like Maslow’s and can be used in a
similar way: to focus a literature review and ensure that a place being created
meets as many of these needs as possible. The desires and drives Reiss discusses
include:
• Power—place has an inherent ability to inspire awe and to indicate power
resulting from a social role (such as being a judge).
• Curiosity—a space can facilitate your fundamental human need to grow
and develop as a person, as outlined by Lawrence and Nohria in 2002.9
• Independence—spaces help us influence our own destiny, particularly
when we have fundamental control over them.
• Status—place can communicate social status both directly and through
more nuanced, culture-based nonverbal communication.
• Social contact—human beings are pack animals, and even introverts
shrivel when they are deprived of social contact with others. Spaces
design can facilitate or hinder social interaction.
• Vengeance—environments that denigrate others, for example, are
vengeful.
• Honor (meaning tradition in this context)—communicating tradition
and the extent to which it is valued is one of the things that places can
do well.
• Idealism—early examples of green design show how easily places can be
used for idealistic purposes.
• Physical exercise—exercise is much more feasible in some environments
than others
• Romance—space design can encourage or discourage romance
• Family—through home and playground design, for example, we can interact
with our families in ways that we value.
• Order—the rise of the closet organizing industry shows how much we
crave order in our lives.
• Eating—although we can chew and swallow food almost anywhere, it is
certainly more comfortable to do so in some environments, such as those
that are pleasant temperatures and humidity
• Acceptance—following social conventions when we design earns us
acceptance from others (well, at least from many of them).
• Tranquility—we have a fundamental need to restock our levels of mental
energy, and places can help us do just that.
• Saving—places are financial investments, and they also stockpile other
items of value to us.
Using Environmental Psychology
Although researchers have been investigating how human beings respond
to and interact with the world around themselves for a long time, work in
the area was coordinated in the 1960s with the formalization of the field
of environmental psychology. Environmental psychologists focus on how
human attitudes and behaviors are influenced by the physical world. That
means they are experts at answering questions such as what colors will relax
people, how wide a dining table should be, and how to arrange furniture in
a space. They are also concerned with issues such as ceiling height and how
personality and culture (organizational and national) influence our placebased
experiences.
In this part of the chapter, you will learn the sorts of things about human
experience of place that you should consider when a project begins, how
design can influence place experience, and why you should find out about
the specific people who will use a space under development. We will discuss fundamental human needs that must be recognized in design. Some needs to
be recognized are more project specific and others more universal.
The paragraphs that follow highlight the dangers of extrapolating from
your own experiences to those of others when spaces are being designed. It
discusses a number of ways in which place-based experiences become customized
on the group and individual levels. Generally, you will not be the
user of the spaces that you are designing, so it is important to design with an
awareness of the types of human-place interactions possible. We all share
the same fundamental place-based needs, but don’t all satisfy them in the
same ways.
The single most important lesson that you should take away from this
discussion is the immense number of experiences that different people, all of
whom are perfectly “normal,” can be having in the same space at exactly the
same moment.
Sensing the World
People generally have the same sets of sensory apparatus, but all those sets
of eyes and ears don’t work in the same way. Let’s use vision as an example.
Some people can pick out more details in a scene, at greater distances, than
others. Some people, most of whom are men, have a distorted perception of
colors—that is, they are color blind. Research also shows that our psychological
state influences what we perceive—items more consistent with our current
thoughts are more likely to be noted. Even the language that we speak
influences distinctions that we see between colors and the information in our
physical world that we tend to note. So there are lots of filters between what
we believe that we see and what could more objectively be identified in our
environment.
All of our sensory experiences are filtered, not just our visual ones. Not
all sounds are heard, all scents smelled, or all tactile experiences registered.
Some of the experiences that you provide for users of spaces you develop will
be lost on them—and it’s difficult to predict which ones. What people perceive
is what they expect to experience. We form stereotypes of places just as we
do of people, and it is those stereotypes that we live through unless material
clearly inconsistent with our expectations is extremely obvious. We will
“remember” objects and architectural features as being present in a space if
those objects and features are consistent with our expectations—even if they
weren’t actually there. If we expect a friend’s stylish mom to live in an apartment
with a sophisticated design, we will remember Miro prints on the walls
and Mies chairs—even if the prints on the walls really are Kinkades and the
chairs are from Ethan Allen.
We build our stereotypes based on our own experiences and those of
others that are reported to us. They evolve somewhat as our life experiences
accumulate.
Features of Well-Designed Spaces
All well-designed places satisfy five fundamental performance criteria and
having the right information ensures that spaces you design serve their
users well:10
1. Comply—Provide the support required to complete desired activities.
2. Communicate—Supply information that the person controlling the space
would like to share about who they are, and provide opportunities for
speaking with other people.
3. Challenge—Facilitate the growth and development of the users of the
space.
4. Continue—Remain desirable over time.
5. Comfort—Relieve tension and prevent potentially stressful situations from
developing initially.
Each of these criteria can be addressed in a number of ways. Research
stimulates design ideas—but developing design options is what you’ve been
doing through the design process all along. After reviewing these five performance
criteria, you will better understand the sorts of issues that you need to
probe when researching and the implications of what you learn when you do.
Comply
People can want to accomplish a lot of different things in a space either one at
a time, simultaneously with other goals, or in a clearly anticipatable sequence.
Through programming-type research you will learn more about what sorts of
functions a space will serve.
Some of the ways that a space can support desired activities are clearer
than others. There are certain elements required in a cooking area—an ability
to heat food, clean up, and store cooking tools, for example. Different traditions
can satisfy these requirements in different ways, however. While a kitchen in
the United States does not seem complete without an oven, kitchens in Mexico
generally do not have one; there is a tradition of baking in the oven in the
United States, but th is not the case in Mexico. Basic functions can be satisfied
in different ways in different contexts.
Other ways that a space can support desired actions are less intuitively
obvious. Let’s work through a detailed example. In workplaces, there are people
doing information work as well as people doing knowledge work. We can define
information work as tasks that, after they are initially learned, don’t require a lot
of concentration to carry out. Knowledge work, by contrast, requires concentration,
even after some time in a job—it continuously presents new challenges.
Generally, working in a telephone call center is information work, while strategic
planning and research/development are knowledge work. If knowledge work is to be done well, the people engaged in it need to be able to concentrate,
and the enemy of concentration is distraction.
When we are doing our best to concentrate on knowledge work, the most
significant problems arise from audio distractions. Perfect silence is also a
problem—it is a very odd experience for humans, and we also find it distracting.
Words spoken in languages we understand are most disturbing. The most
effective mechanisms currently available to designers to blunt the impact of
audio distractions on concentration are walls. People often listen to music on
headphones to avoid being distracted, but listening to music on headphones
has also been shown to reduce cognitive performance. If designers can’t create
floor-to-ceiling walls around people who need to concentrate, the only
available mechanism to help people do so are fully enclosed (this means floor
to ceiling sound-proofed walls) touchdown spaces that can be used on an asneeded
basis. These touchdown spaces are not optimal, however, as continuity
of physical environments and presence of personalizing items enhances cognitive
performance.
Environmental distractions, such as from overheard conversations, create
continuing problems for those exposed to them. After being distracted, it takes
information/knowledge workers from 15 to 25 minutes to return to whatever
they were doing before they were distracted. This happens after each and
every distraction, so sitting near a coffee pot or along a central circulation
route can be deadly for workplace effectiveness.
Individuals working in an open environment do speak more to each other
than people in spaces where they have less visual access to each other—but
they spend less time talking about work related issues. It is important that
people working together have these non-work-related conversations so that
they bond to each other and form a more cohesive workgroup. In an open work
environment these bonding conversations can become so extensive that they
reduce productivity, however.
Research has shown that regardless of age, no one multitasks very
well—humans who want to do well need to stick to the mono-task world, as
mentioned earlier in this chapter. In addition, people of various generations
move through the same work-life phases, each of which is linked to specific
behaviors—
and that must be reflected in the design of any work area. When
developing a workplace, it is important to consider career and life states and
not generations. Instead of designing for particular generations, it is more
appropriate to create spaces in which people can do specific tasks well.
When we are doing anything, we perform best if we are at an optimal
(moderate) mental energy use level. Unfortunately, there is not a neat equation
that can be used to determine whether a person is at this level, but
people are fairly good at comparing their performance from one situation
to the next. They can accurately report these relative performance levels
if they feel safe in divulging this information. Doing a task that requires
more focus uses more mental energy than one that requires less focus. In addition, being in a relatively more complex physical environment requires
more energy than being in a less complex environment. That’s why we can
sit on a veranda (a relatively complex environment) and read recreationally
(in this case we are at our optimal energy level), but need to move inside
into a space without many audio, visual, or other sensory complexities when
we are doing technical (textbook style) reading. Figures 3.1 and 3.2 provide
examples of a relatively less complex interior environment, as well as a moderately
complex one.
Some environments are more energizing and some are more relaxing.
Not surprisingly, many of the spatial elements that energize us put us in a
more negative mood, while those that are more relaxing put us in a more
positive one.
Negative and positive moods are appropriate for different sorts of activities—
each is desirable at particular times. Positive moods broaden our thinking,
while negative ones narrow it. Positive moods are therefore great if we’re
doing a task that requires creativity or that people get along well with each
other or reach a compromise (e.g., through negotiation). Negative moods are
better when it is desirable for people to focus on completing a rigidly defined
set of tasks. Unpleasant sounds, flashing lights, and bad smells put us in a
negative mood, for example, all else being equal.
In emergency situations, adherence to an established protocol is crucial,
just as it is when doing things such as reviewing information provided and
looking for deviations from norms or processing data in other very straightforward,
specified ways.
Talking with the people who will use a space that you are developing
will help you understand their intended use for the space. This will direct you
in determining what mood the space should encourage. Place attributes that
have been associated with negative moods should be used sparingly, even in
areas where a negative mood is desirable, and not at all (if possible) in spaces
where positive moods are optimal.
Often, people paying to develop a new space say they want a place in
which people are more productive or creative or healthier. Productivity, creativity,
and health generally ensue when a space is designed so that it helps
people complete desired activities in a positive mood. An integrative review of
the social science research reveals that a positive mood in a space is likely to
result if, for example:
• Colors used are not very saturated but relatively bright.
• Colors from near each other on the color wheel are used in combination.
• Forms and lines are generally curving.
• Textures are subdued and there is little variety in them.
• Lighting levels are relatively bright and warm.
• People are at desired distances from each other (the appropriate distance
varies by situation and by national culture).
• People in the space have views out over nature or a similarly refreshing
scene.
• Natural materials, such as wood with relatively light-colored stains and
varnishes are used in the area
• Daylight is present in the space.
A positive mood also improves the functioning of our immune system—
so the mood of both patients and caregivers is very important and their environments
must also be designed to optimize their mood. An extensive body
of research has investigated the best artwork for patient, clinical, and staff
spaces in a hospital, for example.
The influence of mood on shopping behavior is complex. When people are
shopping for fun, it is best for sales if the environment puts them in a positive
mood. When people are doing utilitarian, purpose-driven shopping—stopping
to buy milk and eggs on their way home from work—that positive mood isn’t as
important and efficient store layout is highly desirable.
Communicate
Human beings are communicating all the time—sometimes with words,
sometimes without. Many messages sent nonverbally are trusted more
than spoken ones. Involuntary nonverbal messages, such as fleeting facial
expressions and body movements, gain credibility because they are often
revealed involuntarily and then filtered. Nonverbal messages are sent
through the items we choose to add to our environments as well as how
we modify the spaces themselves. Photos of families or boats, furniture
arrangements, and new marble flooring all are introduced to send particular
messages.
It’s hard to know what’s being communicated nonverbally unless you
share cultural affiliations with the person transmitting information (see Figure
3.3). As we grow up in a culture we not only learn its spoken language,
but also its unspoken one. We come to understand things such as cultural
associations to particular colors, how far we should stand from other people
in various situations, and how to isolate ourselves politely from other people
when we need to mull over recent events and order our thoughts. Many of
the place-based rules we learn are tacit knowledge, so we don’t really have
a mechanism to share them with people from other cultures, except by using
them, so it’s difficult for people from other cultures to pick them up in any
organized way.
Although the specific “words” being used to communicate nonverbally
through space vary by cultures (group and national), spaces are used to convey
both personal and group identity (See Figure 3.4). The messages we broadcast
help us feel comfortable in a space. They also change over time. The skills and mechanisms we use to send those messages evolve, as well. The importance of
the messages perseveres throughout our lives and in all of the spaces that we
control, whether we are at home, work, in a hospital bed, or visiting the commercial
establishments we chose to frequent.
Challenge
We all have a personal development plan—one of our fundamental drives as
human beings is to grow and develop in a personally meaningful way. Place
design can help us achieve this objective. Space can provide the acoustical
isolation we need to become a cellist or the chemistry lab we need to develop
new pyrotechnics, or spaces to socialize with our children so we can guide
them to develop as human beings—as we expand our parenting skills. Our
drive to grow and develop as a person is particularly pertinent when designing
residential environments.
Continue
A space that evolves as its users and their needs changes is desirable. Particularly
during tough psychological times, people prefer familiar spaces and
things. A space that continues to meet user needs can be a significant emotional
support. Spaces that support us psychologically over time are also better
financial investments and more earth friendly. Flexibility can be provided
through architectural elements as well as furnishings that are easy to reconfigure
Comfort
Several attributes of a space can help us feel comfortable. When people
control their experience in a space, they are comfortable in it. Control is the
ability to make choices as to a space’s physical form and attributes. Personalizing
a space with family photographs establishes control, which can also be
exercised through changing the temperature or turning on a light. Control
is at a fundamental level making a choice.11 (Iynegar’s research on choice is
discussed in Chapter 2.) Groups need control of their environments, just as
people do.
When we feel in control of a situation, our stress levels decrease and we
are more likely to be in a positive mood than when we’re without control. We
are also more apt to feel satisfied and comfortable in the space when we feel in
control of it (see Figure 3.5).
Feeling in control of our personal space is really important to us psychologically.
Personal space is a set of zones that surrounds us and varies from situation
to situation. The sizes of the personal spaces that people maintain vary by culture and perceptions of the situation—excellent arguments for providing
a range of seating options, some on wheels, so people can maintain their
desired distances from each other. Although the exact size of our personal
spaces in different contexts varies by culture, each society maintains zones
that range from one very close one that we allow only intimates to enter, to
spaces used in formal situations that are much larger. We respond negatively
when our personal space is broached and become tense. We will also adopt
behaviors that help us ignore the troubling situation. We make
sure not to catch the space invader’s eye, for example, and orient our body so
we are not directly facing them—think about what happens in an elevator
(even if it only has two people in it), and you get the idea.
We also control territories. Territories provide us with a home base in
which we can decompress, and when we do, we broaden our thought processes.
Both individuals and groups have territories and each polices intrusions
into their spaces. Some barriers between territories are more traditional,
such as walls and doors, and others are more symbolic. An edge of a rug, a
change in ceiling height, or the area lit by a particular light can all serve as
territorial markers.
Crowding results when we lose control of the number of people nearby.
Crowding is an impression and not an objective reality. Crowding by definition is an unwanted collection of people around us—what we’re happy to experience
with our family is not so pleasant on the subway with strangers, for example.
When we feel crowded, we work to escape. Interestingly, architectural
features that would, at least theoretically allow us to escape from a situation,
such as windows, make us feel less crowded. So do higher ceilings. It’s as if
when our personal space on the sides is compressed, the lost space can bubble
overhead like a balloon and we can still be comfortable.
Human beings are social animals. Even the most introverted introvert
needs human companionship from time to time. Time to time is key here. We
want to socialize as desired and be alone as desired. Being alone has a lot of
psychological value—mainly because it helps us reflect on what’s happened to
us recently and integrate our thoughts and experiences with others that we’ve
had. It also allows us to relax. Privacy is so important that in today’s open
workplaces employees seem to be taking shelter in bathroom stalls. Being
pack animals we are also very attuned to differences in status.
When we’re doing the sort of intense thinking that is characterized as
knowledge work for a long time, we become mentally exhausted. We can
restock our levels of mental energy and reduce stress by looking at scenes we
find fascinating and effortless to observe. Fish tanks and fire work well. So
do views of outdoor spaces reminiscent of our life on the savanna. The places
observed should not be totally wild jungles, but should have sections that look
like a gentle meadow bordered by trees, with a few leafy trees in the middle of
the space (see Figure 3.9). Best is to look out over this live, and from a higher
vantage point onto the scene described, but the image also has benefits when
used in two dimensions as artwork.
SOCIAL-SCIENCE-BASED INFORMATION NEEDS
Social scientists of various types—for instance, psychologists, sociologists,
anthropologists—study people and their physical environments. Their work
specifically augments or complements the information collected in the designproject-
based data-gathering process. It ensures that appropriate use is made
of that project-specific data. Design-project-based research might indicate
that hospital pharmacists need to concentrate as they work, and social science
research can then richly inform the designer creating that space for concentrative
work. Generally, social-science-based information is gathered through literature
reviews after diagnostic information (such as identification on national
culture or need to concentrate) is gathered using tools such as surveys and
observation.
The material in this section introduces the types of issues that designers
need to resolve to move forward with a successful project. Pleasure, which
is generally desirable in a space, can be derived in several ways, to start. In
addition, culture and personality have an important influence on experience
of place, which is discussed in a few pages. Researchers designing a space
to be used by members of their own national culture will naturally plan so
that the culture is supported through physical form. If they are designing a
space that will be used predominantly by another national culture, designers
need to learn about how members of the user culture relate to their physical environments. The same goes for personality. Including a member of the culture
on the design team is a good idea. Another example: Extensive research
has linked in-store smells to purchase behavior. The latest research in this
field should influence retail HVAC system design, for example.5
The following discussion of social-science-related information needs is
cursory but sufficient to indicate the kinds of information that you might need
for any project, the range of topics investigated by social scientists, and the
importance of reviewing social science research as you begin a project. Any
of the topics mentioned here need to be investigated more fully for particular
design projects. Since the material discussed here is shared to incite interest
and not as a complete exploration of any of the issues raised, references are
rare, to encourage review of the literature for each project. All the material
provided is drawn from research conducted by people other than the authors,
except as noted.
anthropologists—study people and their physical environments. Their work
specifically augments or complements the information collected in the designproject-
based data-gathering process. It ensures that appropriate use is made
of that project-specific data. Design-project-based research might indicate
that hospital pharmacists need to concentrate as they work, and social science
research can then richly inform the designer creating that space for concentrative
work. Generally, social-science-based information is gathered through literature
reviews after diagnostic information (such as identification on national
culture or need to concentrate) is gathered using tools such as surveys and
observation.
The material in this section introduces the types of issues that designers
need to resolve to move forward with a successful project. Pleasure, which
is generally desirable in a space, can be derived in several ways, to start. In
addition, culture and personality have an important influence on experience
of place, which is discussed in a few pages. Researchers designing a space
to be used by members of their own national culture will naturally plan so
that the culture is supported through physical form. If they are designing a
space that will be used predominantly by another national culture, designers
need to learn about how members of the user culture relate to their physical environments. The same goes for personality. Including a member of the culture
on the design team is a good idea. Another example: Extensive research
has linked in-store smells to purchase behavior. The latest research in this
field should influence retail HVAC system design, for example.5
The following discussion of social-science-related information needs is
cursory but sufficient to indicate the kinds of information that you might need
for any project, the range of topics investigated by social scientists, and the
importance of reviewing social science research as you begin a project. Any
of the topics mentioned here need to be investigated more fully for particular
design projects. Since the material discussed here is shared to incite interest
and not as a complete exploration of any of the issues raised, references are
rare, to encourage review of the literature for each project. All the material
provided is drawn from research conducted by people other than the authors,
except as noted.
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
DESIGN-PROJECT-BASED INFORMATION GATHERING
A core set of design-project-specific information is needed to move a project
forward. The data required can be grouped into two main categories: subjective
and objective. Subjective here means tightly tied to values, expectations,
and opinions, and includes things like the aspirations of a firm. Objective
information isn’t generally open for debate—a certain number of beds are
required in an intensive care unit if it can reasonably be expected to break
even financially, an office must have a certain number of four-person meeting
rooms if the client organization anticipates having the same sort of meeting
mix in the future that it does now, and so on.
The design-project-based information required for successful design can
be categorized as:
• Subjective criteria
Aspirations of client leaders in general
Goals of client leaders for space
• Objective criteria
Context for project
Resources available
Challenges to overcome
Measures of project success
Aspirations and Goals
Aspirations are often the star of a client’s mission statement if it’s an organization,
or the forces that propel clients forward if they are individuals. Aspirations
are the reason that any action is being taken. They are the highest-level
objectives for your client, the ones that coordinate their actions, if they are organized. A hospital might aspire to maximize the health of community members,
or to serve as a center for learning and research, educating future physicians,
and conducting primary research.
Aspirations can guide your design decisions in a general sense. An
investment firm that aspires to be a trusted resource for millions of investors
wants to use finishes that are not the most expensive that they could technically
afford. These lower costs help lock in higher returns on investments and
send a “successful but prudent” message to clients. Investment firm clients
also might want to place their office in a prominent location to show that they
are members of a community and use only fair trade materials to indicate that
they are concerned about humankind in general. An investment firm might
wish to provide its phone investment counselors with comfortable ergonomic
chairs and surround them with high acoustics-enhancing walls so that they
always sound pleasant and focused during telephone conversations.
A medical spa that wants to always provide its clients with the most
advanced treatments not only needs plumbing, electrical, and structural elements
that are easy to change but also needs ready access to a training room
for aestheticians and a loading dock for the delivery of bulky new equipment,
particularly if it provides hydrotherapy.
Goals are also closely tied to the opinions of the leaders of client firms, and
they funnel naturally into the measures of success for a space. Like aspirations,
they are tightly tied to the values of an organization. Goals are less strategic
and comprehensive than aspirations. They directly link a space to aspirations
by concretely stating how a space will help an organization achieve those
highest-order objectives. They suggest something, behavioral or otherwise,
that can be measured. Goals are classified as subjective here, because even a
relatively straightforward aspiration can lead to a number of goals, and selecting
the specific ones to be pursued in a space is the responsibility of the client
organization’s leaders.
An oncology facility might have the objective of empathetic support for
patients and their families, which would be most likely if caregivers become
more comfortable with cancer-care situations. That requires extended employment
periods. A goal for an oncology facility project might be increasing nursing
staff retention rates; a measure of success could be bringing turnover down
to 50 percent of its current level, for example. Design implications of this desire
to increase retention rates could be a larger number of restorative spaces for
nurses that are clearly separated from areas accessible by patients and their
families.
If a high school is being designed, an aspiration could be to graduate
students that perform at their highest possible intellectual level and become
leaders of society by succeeding in traditional venues, such as Ivy League universities.
This aspiration could result in the goal of teaching using pedagogical
techniques that are valued in the more-traditional education community and
that result in high test-score performance. Space design can support or hinder applying particular teaching techniques. Goal achievement could be assessed
via the test scores of graduating students, a doubling of applications to the
school itself, or the rate at which accepted students ultimately enroll (yield).
A high school whose objective is to mold its students into leaders who will
motivate others to more sustainable behaviors could require a different form,
depending on the specific goals selected. For example, the goal of educating
students on the science behind sustainability could require different laboratory
spaces than those in the first school described.
When you are reviewing goals with clients, it’s important not to be too
deterministic about the implications of specific design decisions. A space
can support the achievement of goals and aspirations, but space alone can
never guarantee success—that is based on a number of factors. Just as an
ill-conceived space might appear to be a good performer because of contextual
(e.g., demographic, economic) changes, a brilliantly conceived space
could fail due to external factors. That is, regardless of how well-grounded
design choices are in research, a number of real-world situations can intervene
and prevent a group from reaching its goals. Imagine a plastic surgery
clinic in offices that are designed to provide supportive and compassionate
care. Repeat business (e.g., botox injections) among its clientele could
fall after the practice redesigns its space if the economy hits a rough spot,
regardless of the design of the offices. This inability of place to dictate outcomes
does not reduce the need for objective performance criteria. It does,
however, require that performance on measures of success need to be put in
a broader context.
Measures of Success
Measures of success need to be, well, measurable. They are linked to how
organizations or individuals want to achieve their aspirations through goals.
Determining measures of success can be a real challenge, but clever thought
ultimately prevails. Steelcase and its research colleagues, for example, wanted
to learn more about how physical design could influence collaboration.4 They
did research at a client design firm and carefully monitored the number of
hours spent in each project phase, knowing that some of those project phases
were more collaboration intense than others. They compared the number of
client hours charged to each project phase before and after the work environments
were changed and used that information to assess the effectiveness of a
new environment for collaboration.
A restaurant can determine if a redesign is facilitating desired changes
by looking at the average receipts per day or week or month. In addition, it
can dive in and look at what is being purchased at each meal. An increase in
high-margin items that extend time in the space, such as desserts, indicates
that patrons feel comfortable enough to want to remain longer. Whether longer
stays are desirable or not depends on whether the pricing structure at the restaurant maximizes income (revenue minus expenses) when people buy
high-margin desserts or when turn is faster.
An increased number of people gathering/stopping in front of a community
feature such as a fountain or sculpture (e.g., Anish Kapoor’s Cloud
Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, Chicago) indicates a space that resonates
with users—people want to be near things that they respect and value. If the
goal of a public project is to increase tourist traffic, observing this gathering
of potentially local folks is not as useful a measure of success as expert interviews
with convention planners or hotel bellhops who give lots of directions
to guests.
Perceived quality of care among the local community is something that a
hospital might desire, but this can be difficult to measure effectively through
surveys or even face-to-face conversations with local citizens. The number of
doctors requesting surgical privileges at the hospital reflects perceived quality
of care—doctors want to be associated with the places where patients want
to have surgery, particularly for highly elective procedures such as plastic
surgery. Perceptions of care are also related to requests for interviews by local
television stations.
Resources and Challenges
Resources and challenges focus on the very particular situation in which a
project will take place. They ground a project in reality. Resources and challenges
can generally be roughly described (financial, human, time), but might
also be somewhat difficult to quantify. Examples of the latter condition are
the level of access that researchers will have to the ultimate users of a space,
a measurement of how easy it is to navigate through a site (important because
staff turnover is high), or the importance of a need to keep client separated
from others. For example, people leaving appointments with psychologists
don’t want to run into gossipy passersby. A concert hall faces acoustic challenges
and acoustics is a mathematical field generally, but in-office acoustics
are difficult to relate directly to worker performance (e.g., if client management
has decried an “open” workplace environment).
People with business training can think of the resources/challenges
analysis as a project-specific SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities,
threats) analysis. The strengths and opportunities of a project are its resources
while weaknesses and threats are challenges. Strengths and weaknesses are
internal to an organization, while opportunities and threats are external. They
include societywide forces such as movement toward sustainability as well as
firm-specific considerations such as a superstar R&D team.
The resources and challenges that designers need to recognize can be
identified in different ways. Interviews with executives and general employees
will reveal some. So will surveys of the client’s clients or discussions with
them. Talking with suppliers who interact with several organizations similar to the design client can really pay off. Visits to competitors are in order for
many sorts of design projects, and undercover missions to current sites, operated
by the client and its competitors, can be really productive. This might
involve being a “patient” at an emergency room or dining at a café to be redesigned,
for example. Content analyzing competitive advertisements can also
provide useful information. Never discount the value of applying techniques
familiar from literature reviews to market analyses. Any of the research tools
profiled in this book can be used to learn about project-related resources and
challenges.
Project Context
Recognizing project context is important for project success and learning
about project context informs design at all levels of scale. Context is all of the
specific information you need about the people who will use a space and the
situations under which they will do so. It ranges from employee lunch rituals
(e.g., eating at their individual desks or together in a company owned cafeteria)
to behaviors that are rewarded (e.g., employees are encouraged to stay
late) or censured (e.g., walking by other people’s cubicles too often to pick up
items from the printer) to whether people need to be able to concentrate while
they’re in the office, for example. Context is who the users of a space are, what
people do (or want to do or should do) in a space, how they do (or want to do
or should do) what they do in a space, why they’re motivated as they are, what
helps them do whatever they’re endeavoring to do, and what hinders them
from doing what’s desired, for starters.
Context is the details of the key questions:
• Who (will use the space, their national culture, organizational culture,
training, personality, role in the organization or community, etc.)
• What (the space will be used for, furnishings need to be reused, relevant
building codes, for example)
• Where (how climate and culture will come into play, location of sight lines
for good views, what is nearby, and other similar information)
• When (present and future market conditions for the client firm, preservable
history of space, how use of the building varies from day to day or
season to season, etc.)
• Why (the space should be redesigned, it is important spiritually or culturally,
if it is, for example)
• How (the use of the space is realistically projected to change during the
next five years, technology will be used in the space, the space communicates
nonverbally to its users, and other associated information)
When we’re discussing design-project-based information needs, we can
think of coming to understand the project context as a straightforward person/
place/behavior audit. When we begin to discuss social-science-based information
needs, it will be clear that supporting context in design requires attention
to additional factors as well.
Information about context is often collected via interviews, surveys, and
observations. It can also come from archival research, literature searches (e.g.,
on industry practices or corporate trends), or other channels.
The research question you are trying to answer does not dictate the
research tool you use. Common sense and available resources (financial, manpower,
time to project phase completion, etc.) are much more important reasons
to choose one research methodology over another. That being said, some
situations encourage use of particular tools. If you are trying to identify the
aspirations of client executives, it is odd to hand them a survey. In this case,
interviews not only permit follow-up questions but also signal appropriate
personal attention to issues of great importance to client executives. They are
necessary for political reasons. Distributing a survey to all employees is a way
for every employee to provide input. This is really important to leaders at some
firms—an instance in which culture also influences tool use.
forward. The data required can be grouped into two main categories: subjective
and objective. Subjective here means tightly tied to values, expectations,
and opinions, and includes things like the aspirations of a firm. Objective
information isn’t generally open for debate—a certain number of beds are
required in an intensive care unit if it can reasonably be expected to break
even financially, an office must have a certain number of four-person meeting
rooms if the client organization anticipates having the same sort of meeting
mix in the future that it does now, and so on.
The design-project-based information required for successful design can
be categorized as:
• Subjective criteria
Aspirations of client leaders in general
Goals of client leaders for space
• Objective criteria
Context for project
Resources available
Challenges to overcome
Measures of project success
Aspirations and Goals
Aspirations are often the star of a client’s mission statement if it’s an organization,
or the forces that propel clients forward if they are individuals. Aspirations
are the reason that any action is being taken. They are the highest-level
objectives for your client, the ones that coordinate their actions, if they are organized. A hospital might aspire to maximize the health of community members,
or to serve as a center for learning and research, educating future physicians,
and conducting primary research.
Aspirations can guide your design decisions in a general sense. An
investment firm that aspires to be a trusted resource for millions of investors
wants to use finishes that are not the most expensive that they could technically
afford. These lower costs help lock in higher returns on investments and
send a “successful but prudent” message to clients. Investment firm clients
also might want to place their office in a prominent location to show that they
are members of a community and use only fair trade materials to indicate that
they are concerned about humankind in general. An investment firm might
wish to provide its phone investment counselors with comfortable ergonomic
chairs and surround them with high acoustics-enhancing walls so that they
always sound pleasant and focused during telephone conversations.
A medical spa that wants to always provide its clients with the most
advanced treatments not only needs plumbing, electrical, and structural elements
that are easy to change but also needs ready access to a training room
for aestheticians and a loading dock for the delivery of bulky new equipment,
particularly if it provides hydrotherapy.
Goals are also closely tied to the opinions of the leaders of client firms, and
they funnel naturally into the measures of success for a space. Like aspirations,
they are tightly tied to the values of an organization. Goals are less strategic
and comprehensive than aspirations. They directly link a space to aspirations
by concretely stating how a space will help an organization achieve those
highest-order objectives. They suggest something, behavioral or otherwise,
that can be measured. Goals are classified as subjective here, because even a
relatively straightforward aspiration can lead to a number of goals, and selecting
the specific ones to be pursued in a space is the responsibility of the client
organization’s leaders.
An oncology facility might have the objective of empathetic support for
patients and their families, which would be most likely if caregivers become
more comfortable with cancer-care situations. That requires extended employment
periods. A goal for an oncology facility project might be increasing nursing
staff retention rates; a measure of success could be bringing turnover down
to 50 percent of its current level, for example. Design implications of this desire
to increase retention rates could be a larger number of restorative spaces for
nurses that are clearly separated from areas accessible by patients and their
families.
If a high school is being designed, an aspiration could be to graduate
students that perform at their highest possible intellectual level and become
leaders of society by succeeding in traditional venues, such as Ivy League universities.
This aspiration could result in the goal of teaching using pedagogical
techniques that are valued in the more-traditional education community and
that result in high test-score performance. Space design can support or hinder applying particular teaching techniques. Goal achievement could be assessed
via the test scores of graduating students, a doubling of applications to the
school itself, or the rate at which accepted students ultimately enroll (yield).
A high school whose objective is to mold its students into leaders who will
motivate others to more sustainable behaviors could require a different form,
depending on the specific goals selected. For example, the goal of educating
students on the science behind sustainability could require different laboratory
spaces than those in the first school described.
When you are reviewing goals with clients, it’s important not to be too
deterministic about the implications of specific design decisions. A space
can support the achievement of goals and aspirations, but space alone can
never guarantee success—that is based on a number of factors. Just as an
ill-conceived space might appear to be a good performer because of contextual
(e.g., demographic, economic) changes, a brilliantly conceived space
could fail due to external factors. That is, regardless of how well-grounded
design choices are in research, a number of real-world situations can intervene
and prevent a group from reaching its goals. Imagine a plastic surgery
clinic in offices that are designed to provide supportive and compassionate
care. Repeat business (e.g., botox injections) among its clientele could
fall after the practice redesigns its space if the economy hits a rough spot,
regardless of the design of the offices. This inability of place to dictate outcomes
does not reduce the need for objective performance criteria. It does,
however, require that performance on measures of success need to be put in
a broader context.
Measures of Success
Measures of success need to be, well, measurable. They are linked to how
organizations or individuals want to achieve their aspirations through goals.
Determining measures of success can be a real challenge, but clever thought
ultimately prevails. Steelcase and its research colleagues, for example, wanted
to learn more about how physical design could influence collaboration.4 They
did research at a client design firm and carefully monitored the number of
hours spent in each project phase, knowing that some of those project phases
were more collaboration intense than others. They compared the number of
client hours charged to each project phase before and after the work environments
were changed and used that information to assess the effectiveness of a
new environment for collaboration.
A restaurant can determine if a redesign is facilitating desired changes
by looking at the average receipts per day or week or month. In addition, it
can dive in and look at what is being purchased at each meal. An increase in
high-margin items that extend time in the space, such as desserts, indicates
that patrons feel comfortable enough to want to remain longer. Whether longer
stays are desirable or not depends on whether the pricing structure at the restaurant maximizes income (revenue minus expenses) when people buy
high-margin desserts or when turn is faster.
An increased number of people gathering/stopping in front of a community
feature such as a fountain or sculpture (e.g., Anish Kapoor’s Cloud
Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, Chicago) indicates a space that resonates
with users—people want to be near things that they respect and value. If the
goal of a public project is to increase tourist traffic, observing this gathering
of potentially local folks is not as useful a measure of success as expert interviews
with convention planners or hotel bellhops who give lots of directions
to guests.
Perceived quality of care among the local community is something that a
hospital might desire, but this can be difficult to measure effectively through
surveys or even face-to-face conversations with local citizens. The number of
doctors requesting surgical privileges at the hospital reflects perceived quality
of care—doctors want to be associated with the places where patients want
to have surgery, particularly for highly elective procedures such as plastic
surgery. Perceptions of care are also related to requests for interviews by local
television stations.
Resources and Challenges
Resources and challenges focus on the very particular situation in which a
project will take place. They ground a project in reality. Resources and challenges
can generally be roughly described (financial, human, time), but might
also be somewhat difficult to quantify. Examples of the latter condition are
the level of access that researchers will have to the ultimate users of a space,
a measurement of how easy it is to navigate through a site (important because
staff turnover is high), or the importance of a need to keep client separated
from others. For example, people leaving appointments with psychologists
don’t want to run into gossipy passersby. A concert hall faces acoustic challenges
and acoustics is a mathematical field generally, but in-office acoustics
are difficult to relate directly to worker performance (e.g., if client management
has decried an “open” workplace environment).
People with business training can think of the resources/challenges
analysis as a project-specific SWOT (strength, weaknesses, opportunities,
threats) analysis. The strengths and opportunities of a project are its resources
while weaknesses and threats are challenges. Strengths and weaknesses are
internal to an organization, while opportunities and threats are external. They
include societywide forces such as movement toward sustainability as well as
firm-specific considerations such as a superstar R&D team.
The resources and challenges that designers need to recognize can be
identified in different ways. Interviews with executives and general employees
will reveal some. So will surveys of the client’s clients or discussions with
them. Talking with suppliers who interact with several organizations similar to the design client can really pay off. Visits to competitors are in order for
many sorts of design projects, and undercover missions to current sites, operated
by the client and its competitors, can be really productive. This might
involve being a “patient” at an emergency room or dining at a café to be redesigned,
for example. Content analyzing competitive advertisements can also
provide useful information. Never discount the value of applying techniques
familiar from literature reviews to market analyses. Any of the research tools
profiled in this book can be used to learn about project-related resources and
challenges.
Project Context
Recognizing project context is important for project success and learning
about project context informs design at all levels of scale. Context is all of the
specific information you need about the people who will use a space and the
situations under which they will do so. It ranges from employee lunch rituals
(e.g., eating at their individual desks or together in a company owned cafeteria)
to behaviors that are rewarded (e.g., employees are encouraged to stay
late) or censured (e.g., walking by other people’s cubicles too often to pick up
items from the printer) to whether people need to be able to concentrate while
they’re in the office, for example. Context is who the users of a space are, what
people do (or want to do or should do) in a space, how they do (or want to do
or should do) what they do in a space, why they’re motivated as they are, what
helps them do whatever they’re endeavoring to do, and what hinders them
from doing what’s desired, for starters.
Context is the details of the key questions:
• Who (will use the space, their national culture, organizational culture,
training, personality, role in the organization or community, etc.)
• What (the space will be used for, furnishings need to be reused, relevant
building codes, for example)
• Where (how climate and culture will come into play, location of sight lines
for good views, what is nearby, and other similar information)
• When (present and future market conditions for the client firm, preservable
history of space, how use of the building varies from day to day or
season to season, etc.)
• Why (the space should be redesigned, it is important spiritually or culturally,
if it is, for example)
• How (the use of the space is realistically projected to change during the
next five years, technology will be used in the space, the space communicates
nonverbally to its users, and other associated information)
When we’re discussing design-project-based information needs, we can
think of coming to understand the project context as a straightforward person/
place/behavior audit. When we begin to discuss social-science-based information
needs, it will be clear that supporting context in design requires attention
to additional factors as well.
Information about context is often collected via interviews, surveys, and
observations. It can also come from archival research, literature searches (e.g.,
on industry practices or corporate trends), or other channels.
The research question you are trying to answer does not dictate the
research tool you use. Common sense and available resources (financial, manpower,
time to project phase completion, etc.) are much more important reasons
to choose one research methodology over another. That being said, some
situations encourage use of particular tools. If you are trying to identify the
aspirations of client executives, it is odd to hand them a survey. In this case,
interviews not only permit follow-up questions but also signal appropriate
personal attention to issues of great importance to client executives. They are
necessary for political reasons. Distributing a survey to all employees is a way
for every employee to provide input. This is really important to leaders at some
firms—an instance in which culture also influences tool use.
INFORMING DESIGN-RELATED CHANGE
Design generally involves some sort of change, and the changes enacted need
to be consistent with a plan for a space that satisfies the needs (stated and
implicit) of the client. If a project moves through to completion, something is
different at the end of the process than at the beginning—physically. If you
consider psychological state, even projects that never take physical form have
the potential to change their world. For example, if unbuilt projects have progressed through a research phase, knowledge gained has altered how
people think.
So if change is what design is all about—what should be changed? Information
can answer that question—but what information do you need to know
to successfully design a space? One of the most significant reasons to conduct
research is because it can be really dangerous to extrapolate from your own
experiences or from generally accepted rules of thumb to design decisions.
Hurdles to Creating Good Design
As the work of Jack Nasar (a professor in the school of architecture at The
Ohio State University) and others have shown, your design training has
altered how you interact with the world around you.1 Your responses to design
elements are more highly developed, for example, than those of people
without your background. So you can’t design based on your own aesthetic
preferences, which are tied to your professional culture, let alone your more
individualized place-based experiences (e.g., the ways that you enjoy relaxing
at home or interacting with a colleague at work). A few years ago, a certain
yellow-yellow-green color was very popular in the design world; it was
used extensively in physical spaces created by designers and in the clothing
that they wore while doing that designing. This color is, however, extremely
unpopular with members of the general public, and color preference tests
often show it to be the least popular color of all in the population at large. Be
forewarned.
One design project can also seem deceptively similar to another without
research and deep thinking about what can reasonably be extrapolated from
one to another. Differences in organizational culture can significantly influence
the effectiveness of the design of various schools, for example, as can
differences in pedagogical techniques preferred. The personalities of residents
make the same floor plan a dream come true for some families and a living
nightmare for others. Impartial information gathering and analysis increase
the probability of successful design.
Among the general public, misunderstandings about optimal place design
are plentiful. Misperceptions about how people interact with their physical
world move in and out of fashion. For example, there has recently been
a widespread belief that the way that humans function in the world around
themselves is undergoing a rapid evolution. In reality, this is not the case and
human brains regardless of age function in the same way, as David Meyer at
the University of Michigan and others have shown.2 Humans of any age, be
they baby boomers or members of generation Y, are distracted in similar ways
in open workplace environments, for example. In addition, humans of various
ages share a need for privacy (on demand), territory and the ability to personalize
that territory to express self-identity, and a space that provide the optimal
stimulation level for the task at hand, among other things.
Cultures, particularly national ones, also evolve slowly—hence, the danger
of ignoring them when developing spaces. This should put the kibosh on
plans for universal, international space plans, which has often been discussed
by designers and clients.
These sorts of misunderstandings make research that supports design
decisions an important resource, particularly as design specifics are discussed
with clients.
Purpose of Research
The reason why we research is so that we can create the best sorts of places
for particular people, at particular times, doing particular things. Even beginning
to understand what “the best sorts of places” are can be a formidable
challenge, and it’s almost impossible to coordinate that without knowledge—
real information about the way in which people will experience the spaces
that you are developing.
Identifying that intended culmination of a project can be your first challenge.
Before you can write a great survey, you need to determine what
to cover in those questions. Similarly, there’s no sense sitting down for an
interview, expert or otherwise, until you have an idea what info you need
when you walk away from the session. When a school district hires you to
build a school, what is it hoping to accomplish with the new structure, and
how will it know if its efforts have been successful? Workplace clients have
similar concerns, so before you begin to design an office you need to also
know about the client’s expectations about whether people will work there
or at home, what sort of meetings need to be facilitated, what sort of culture
is to be encouraged, and the mix of national cultures that will frequent the
place—for starters. For a medical center, you need to learn about not only
organizational objectives, but also about health care and employee continuity
and planned community outreach, among other things. Will alternative
care facilities and a training center and office complex for doctors and
research labs to coordinate drug trials be required? These are all relatively
traditional programming questions. Moving beyond these queries to understand
why particular decisions have been made and to fully explore design
alternatives and repercussions in terms of user experiences differentiates
great and good design.
This chapter introduces an approach to thinking about design-related
information requirements and a little background on the psychology of how
people respond to the world around them. In this book we’re focusing on
research to collect information, not for inspiration, to use the data dichotomy
developed by Stephanie Munson and Bruce Tharp.3 We can’t present an
exhaustive checklist of “things to learn” here because for each project you
need to answer a unique set of design questions, but we can thoroughly
explore how you can figure out what you need to know.
The psychology of how people respond to the physical world can’t be comprehensively
addressed in this chapter, either. Here, you will learn some of
the topics to investigate via a literature review or your own primary research.
For example, once you realize the psychological importance of territories to
human beings, you can investigate the latest research on hospital patients and
territories or information workers and territories, as required by a project you
are working on.
First, we’ll talk about some of the design-based info you need to collect,
and then the social science research that can inform the design of spaces that
satisfy both stated and implicit client needs.
to be consistent with a plan for a space that satisfies the needs (stated and
implicit) of the client. If a project moves through to completion, something is
different at the end of the process than at the beginning—physically. If you
consider psychological state, even projects that never take physical form have
the potential to change their world. For example, if unbuilt projects have progressed through a research phase, knowledge gained has altered how
people think.
So if change is what design is all about—what should be changed? Information
can answer that question—but what information do you need to know
to successfully design a space? One of the most significant reasons to conduct
research is because it can be really dangerous to extrapolate from your own
experiences or from generally accepted rules of thumb to design decisions.
Hurdles to Creating Good Design
As the work of Jack Nasar (a professor in the school of architecture at The
Ohio State University) and others have shown, your design training has
altered how you interact with the world around you.1 Your responses to design
elements are more highly developed, for example, than those of people
without your background. So you can’t design based on your own aesthetic
preferences, which are tied to your professional culture, let alone your more
individualized place-based experiences (e.g., the ways that you enjoy relaxing
at home or interacting with a colleague at work). A few years ago, a certain
yellow-yellow-green color was very popular in the design world; it was
used extensively in physical spaces created by designers and in the clothing
that they wore while doing that designing. This color is, however, extremely
unpopular with members of the general public, and color preference tests
often show it to be the least popular color of all in the population at large. Be
forewarned.
One design project can also seem deceptively similar to another without
research and deep thinking about what can reasonably be extrapolated from
one to another. Differences in organizational culture can significantly influence
the effectiveness of the design of various schools, for example, as can
differences in pedagogical techniques preferred. The personalities of residents
make the same floor plan a dream come true for some families and a living
nightmare for others. Impartial information gathering and analysis increase
the probability of successful design.
Among the general public, misunderstandings about optimal place design
are plentiful. Misperceptions about how people interact with their physical
world move in and out of fashion. For example, there has recently been
a widespread belief that the way that humans function in the world around
themselves is undergoing a rapid evolution. In reality, this is not the case and
human brains regardless of age function in the same way, as David Meyer at
the University of Michigan and others have shown.2 Humans of any age, be
they baby boomers or members of generation Y, are distracted in similar ways
in open workplace environments, for example. In addition, humans of various
ages share a need for privacy (on demand), territory and the ability to personalize
that territory to express self-identity, and a space that provide the optimal
stimulation level for the task at hand, among other things.
Cultures, particularly national ones, also evolve slowly—hence, the danger
of ignoring them when developing spaces. This should put the kibosh on
plans for universal, international space plans, which has often been discussed
by designers and clients.
These sorts of misunderstandings make research that supports design
decisions an important resource, particularly as design specifics are discussed
with clients.
Purpose of Research
The reason why we research is so that we can create the best sorts of places
for particular people, at particular times, doing particular things. Even beginning
to understand what “the best sorts of places” are can be a formidable
challenge, and it’s almost impossible to coordinate that without knowledge—
real information about the way in which people will experience the spaces
that you are developing.
Identifying that intended culmination of a project can be your first challenge.
Before you can write a great survey, you need to determine what
to cover in those questions. Similarly, there’s no sense sitting down for an
interview, expert or otherwise, until you have an idea what info you need
when you walk away from the session. When a school district hires you to
build a school, what is it hoping to accomplish with the new structure, and
how will it know if its efforts have been successful? Workplace clients have
similar concerns, so before you begin to design an office you need to also
know about the client’s expectations about whether people will work there
or at home, what sort of meetings need to be facilitated, what sort of culture
is to be encouraged, and the mix of national cultures that will frequent the
place—for starters. For a medical center, you need to learn about not only
organizational objectives, but also about health care and employee continuity
and planned community outreach, among other things. Will alternative
care facilities and a training center and office complex for doctors and
research labs to coordinate drug trials be required? These are all relatively
traditional programming questions. Moving beyond these queries to understand
why particular decisions have been made and to fully explore design
alternatives and repercussions in terms of user experiences differentiates
great and good design.
This chapter introduces an approach to thinking about design-related
information requirements and a little background on the psychology of how
people respond to the world around them. In this book we’re focusing on
research to collect information, not for inspiration, to use the data dichotomy
developed by Stephanie Munson and Bruce Tharp.3 We can’t present an
exhaustive checklist of “things to learn” here because for each project you
need to answer a unique set of design questions, but we can thoroughly
explore how you can figure out what you need to know.
The psychology of how people respond to the physical world can’t be comprehensively
addressed in this chapter, either. Here, you will learn some of
the topics to investigate via a literature review or your own primary research.
For example, once you realize the psychological importance of territories to
human beings, you can investigate the latest research on hospital patients and
territories or information workers and territories, as required by a project you
are working on.
First, we’ll talk about some of the design-based info you need to collect,
and then the social science research that can inform the design of spaces that
satisfy both stated and implicit client needs.
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