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.
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