If you’ve been waiting for official confirmation that the population seems stressed, now you have it, courtesy of the American Psychological Association.
Each year, the American Psychological Association reports on stress levels in America. In 2020 they report that “nearly 8 in 10 adults (78%) say the coronavirus pandemic is a significant source of stress in their lives, while 3 in 5 (60%) say the number of issues America faces is overwhelming to them. . . . Nearly 1 in 5 adults (19%) say their mental health is worse than it was at this time last year” (https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2020/10/stress-mental-health-crisis).
You may be one of the stressed individuals the APA reports, and some among your colleagues certainly are—and it’s unlikely that general stress levels will fall much as people return to onsite work.
Workplace design can’t work magic and eliminate the stress being experienced by people returning to the workplace, but some prudent design decisions can help with user mental health.
Selecting from among the least rousing of any set of design options available can help manage user stress. That means, for example, that choosing surface colors that aren’t very saturated but are relatively bright (for example, a sage green with lots of white mixed into it), patterns with more curving than straight lines, and relaxing scents for hand sanitizers (pick lavender) are good ideas. So is wrestling the visual clutter monster into submission with opaque cabinets (remember, to design/manage for the sort of visual complexity found in a residential space designed by Frank Lloyd Wright) and carefully considering the soundscape people will experience. Since seeing other people revs us up and can help spread stress among a group, using interpersonal barriers that allow day light to flow but now views of others can also be a good thing.
Making sure that workspaces align with tasks to be done will also be particularly important for workers who have experienced high stress levels before they even get to the office. This means people need to truly be able to focus in areas where they’re trying to concentrate, for example, and have the tools they need to collaborate in spaces for group work, for instance. Activity-based workplaces can support the full range of tasks that are likely to face employees, and, with high worker stress levels, it is particularly important that they do.
People are stressed (and that likely includes you). Physical workplaces that amp up tension levels can decimate professional performance; those that sooth and support the task-at-hand help users work to their full potential, while buttressing their mental health.
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.