Autonomy is one of the core motivations recognized by Self-Determination Theory – humans need to feel that they have some control over what happens to them.
As discussed previously here, a primary goal of design should be to give people a comfortable level of control over the physical environments in which they find themselves. That means presenting them with a carefully curated set of 4 to 6 options that align with how a space is likely to be used, but not an infinite number of possible choices.
Working from home, people have gotten accustomed to having lots of say over working conditions – there’s no one to battle with for control of the thermostat, for example, but returning to work in company offices will mean that people have fewer expectations about fine-tuning the environment to their individual desires. They will step back into the systems/rituals related to group control they previously lived by when they step back into shared offices.
However, immediately post pandemic some people may be extra concerned about safeguarding the healthfulness of the spaces in which they find themselves. One of the most likely ways they may wish to do so is by controlling the interpersonal distancing they experience as an individual. Workplaces where there is some flexibility in how far people are from each other will be desirable. In practical terms, that desire to control distancing translates into lightweight chairs with arms (those arms signal an individual territory) that people can reposition slightly as desired, at individual work stations and in conference rooms, (bonus points if these seats are on casters), or longish sofas, where people can position themselves as they please during conversations.
People may be concerned about issues in addition to interpersonal spacing when they return to the workplace and each of those concerns needs to be dealt with in ways that make it likely that people perceive that they have a degree of control over their life course.
There’s talk of increasing automation in the offices people return to. Automation, as it’s generally implemented, reduces employee control of their work situation. That’s why automation, no matter how thoughtfully done, has been linked over and over again to more complaints about the physical environments in which people work – and some of the most common “issues” are for things that haven’t been automated at all – for example lights get automated and complaints about temperature and noise increase. To some extent, the negative repercussions of automation can be reduced if automation, which reduces perceptions of control, is coupled with some other change that increases those same perceptions, say moving from hotdesking to assigned seats or more at-work types of workspaces to choose from.
People like to feel that they have control over their existence – perhaps it was vital to our survival when we were a young species, and the workplaces that people return to and continue to use far into the future are better if they preserve those perceptions.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. 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), Designology (Mango, 2019), 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.