Design Preferences

Devlin and her research team begin by observing that “Multicultural sensitivity is important in clinical practice, yet we know little about how the physical environment projects this quality.”  The researchers learned that “a therapist whose office included art and artifacts from a variety of cultures (e.g., through textiles, sculptures) was judged to be more open to multiculturalism than was the therapist whose office displayed objects from a tradition that could be categorized as more western.

Better Homes and Gardens Real Estate surveyed members of the Millennial generation (18-35 years old) to identify features they desire in homes.  The researchers learned that “Stereotypical luxury and prototypical homes do not entice them [Millennials]; rather these consumers strive to own homes that stand apart and suit their personal lifestyle… Nearly 1 in 3 (30%) Millennials surveyed would actually prefer a “fixer-upper” to a house with minimal repairs needed . . . .

Zillow has scientifically assessed home architecture styles across the United States.   The patterns they’ve found will be useful to designers working with clients who like to conform to prevalent styles, as opposed to live in homes that are more distinctive.  Zillow learned that “Midwestern states most commonly have bungalow and ranch/rambler-style houses . . . . .

In a 2012 presentation at Light Canada/IIDEX 2012, Jennifer Veitch of the National Research Council Canada effectively summarized the findings of office lighting research carried out by her, her colleagues, and other researchers.  As Veitch reports, “Laboratory research at NRC and elsewhere demonstrated that people prefer a mixture of direct and indirect lighting that lights the entire workspace and individual personal control over the local lighting level.

Designers developing travel destinations need to know what draws tourists to an area.  Lacher and team found through a study that “force[d] individuals to make choices between hypothetical trips based on tradeoffs of attributes such as number of activities, amount of locally owned restaurants, degree of local character, and trip cost . . . .

More than one factor influences home-selection decisions.  Zahabi and his teammates learned from a study focused on “the relationships between Land-use (LU), public transit accessibility (PT), parking policies, and mode choice for suburban Montreal” that decisions about where to live are made simultaneously with decisions about how to travel to and from work – the two are fully interrelated.  That means that home-selection decisions are tightly related to how residents prefer to travel to and from work.

Hennings and her many collaborators investigated why people from various parts of the world purchase luxury goods.  The differences that the researchers found in reasons for purchase can inform the specification of design options, luxury and otherwise; they illustrate important cultural differences in motivations for selection. A related press release from the University of Delaware, neatly summarizes the researchers’ major findings: “’American consumers generally buy goods for self fulfillment, rather than to please others,’ [Jaehee Jung] said . . .

Khan, Misra, and Singh have shown that conservatives are more likely to purchase some products than others; designers can use their findings to identify options to present to clients.  First, what is a conservative?  Khan and her team define “conservatives” as people who generally vote for Republicans or actively practice a religion.  Khan, Misra, and Singh found that when making routine purchases (those that are perceived to involve minimal inherent risk) “more conservative ideology is associated with higher reli­ance on established national brands (as

Previous research has shown that the way that art is labeled influences how positively or negatively people respond to it (for example, see https://researchdesignconnections.com/pub/review-scientific-research-aes...).  Swami learned that “the provision of relevant, elaborate, and content-specific information results in better understanding of abstract artworks, which in turn is associated with better aesthetic appreciation.” An example of content-specific information was provided.  Text accompanying an image detailed that the viewers would:  “’be present

Krentz and Earl learned that infants and adults prefer the same sorts of abstract art – images with high visual contrast and moderate visual complexity.  They conclude that “although we cannot make the claim that these preferences are innate, we can suggest that their emergence in the first 6 months of life are both biologically based and driven by exposure to highly reliable sources of visual information from the environment.”