DESIGN RESEARCH TO GAIN UNDERSTANDING OF CULTURAL DISTINCTIONS

Through design research, designers are better able to recognize and respond
to demographic, economic, and social changes. As world cultures become
more integrated, it assures that spaces psychologically and physically support
people of different traditions, values, and experiences. Different cultures
perceive and use their environments in different ways, for instance.
Through research, designers access information that builds a framework
of knowledge and insights to draw from when responding to culture-based
challenges.
Design research identifies true cultural differences. Access to demographic,
psychological, sociological, and anthropological research studies,
along with the knowledge developed through life experiences such as travel,
provides the core information required to create environments customized to
optimize the experiences of diverse groups of people. This is especially valuable
when those diverse groups will use a space concurrently.
For example, designers often develop spaces intended for the simultaneous
use of several generations of workers. A body of psychological research
(e.g., from the lab of David Meyer at the University of Michigan) shows that
members of generation Y and the baby boomers multitask equally well,
although intuition might indicate that this is not the case.12 Although generations
multitask similarly, they have differing place-based expectations and
respond uniquely to nonverbal cues in their environments. In this situation,
having access to grounded research information leads to the design of more
effective environments—for all users.