At this time of year, the sun stays relatively low in the sky – even during the brightest part of the day – in lots of the Northern Hemisphere. It’s similarly dark in the Southern Hemisphere during their winter.
All this darkness makes it clear how important it is to test design options, in place, before they’re finalized – or before too much paint goes up on the wall!
The same paint will look quite different on walls in rooms North of the Equator with North facing, as opposed to South facing, windows during the Northern Hemisphere’s winter. Since the emotional implications of seeing particular colors has been tied to their relative saturation and brightness, these differences can make a big difference in how people think and behave in a space.
Perceived wall color is clearly only one of the design elements influenced by distance from the Equator – and distance from the Equator is only one of the factors that affects how users may experience places you develop. Thinking about all the opportunities for “variation” makes it clear why it’s desirable to review all the conditions in which a space will be experienced before its design plan is finalized.
Conditions within a place can not only change during the course of the year, but also from day to day; actively reviewing these variations leads to a design that will not only better serve users’ needs but also to one that will send the silent message to employees that their organization is thoughtful and organized.
For example, and back to Northerly latitudes, during winter months employees need a space to store parkas and snow boots. During the summer, the same workers may need a secure space for their bicycles. An empty parka-scaled closet during the summer and bike room during the winter make an organization seem disorganized. Another example: On some days there may be more people in a workplace than others – think an office during an in-person all hands meeting every Monday. A design that supports employees on Mondays, but doesn’t seem desolate and deserted on Tuesdays, is desirable.
There are oodles of potential “user experience modifiers.” Ponder, for example, how the spaces around the area being developed are used. A “perfectly designed” conference room that overlooks a playground or after school sports area may not support effective meetings when children are playing outside without extra sound insulation – and that insulation might not have been so clearly required if designer visits to the space happened to occur only during class time. Considering how nearby areas may evolve over time, acoustically and otherwise, also builds longevity into a space.
How a space is experienced varies from day-to-day, month-to-month, and year-to-year. Those variations influence users’ moods and employees’ emotions affect problem solving, creativity and how well people get along, just for starters. Good design recognizes the “timelines” in the use of any space.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.