Top 5 Mistakes

People feel better when they are in control of their environment. If people can reconfigure furniture, adjust the temperature, change the lighting, choose where to sit, and have options to complete tasks, they experience a place more positively.

• People prefer restaurant seats with different degrees of privacy depending on their mood. (RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Preferred Seats in Restaurants")
• Personal control over the physical workspace leads to higher perceived group cohesiveness and job satisfaction. (RDC,  Issue 2, 2006, “Control Matters”)
• When creating environments for dementia patients and their families, a variety of seating options gives families appropriate places to interact based on their visiting style and loved one’s condition. (RDC, Issue 1, 2004, “Dementia Design: Continuing to Make a Difference”
• When completing a simple task, music can increase performance, but decrease performance when the task is complex. With control, individuals can create the musical environment that works best for them. (Research Design Connections (RDC, Issue 4, 2002, “Background Music: Bane or Benefit”)

As good designers, we are all concerned about the experiences people have in the places we create. Unfortunately, we can forget how varied the people who will eventually inhabit and use our spaces actually are.

• Do members of different generations really have different place-based needs? (RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Are Generation Y Brains Different from Baby Boomers Brains?” and Issue 1, 2008, “Facilitating Multi-Generational Interaction”)
• Experience-seekers prefer different art experiences than their less adventurous peers. (RDC, Issue 3, 2009, “Museum Choice and Experience Seeking”)
• Children thrive in spaces that share certain physical attributes. (RDC, Issue 4, 2008, “Children and the Physical Environment”)
• Autistic children can benefit from spaces designed for them. (RDC,  Issue 2, 2008, “Designing for Autistic Users”)
• Increasing numbers of individuals with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are working in offices and they have specific workplace needs. (RDC, Issue 1, 2007, “ADHD and Workplace Design”)
• Color Symbolism has an important influence on response to particular environments. There are a variety of meanings for particular colors in different parts of the world. (RDC, Issue 3, 2006, “Cross-Cultural Color Use Key”)
• Different population segments have different design preferences. (RDC, Issue 1, 2004, “Generation Y’s Design Preferences”)
• We all know about universally accessible play equipment, but what about designing play areas appropriate for young users’ developmental stages? (RDC , Issues 2 and 3, 2003, “Fully Integrated, Universally Accessible Play Environments: The Next Paradigm Shift”)
• Sometimes people who use buildings work in the background. Have you ever considered what truck and delivery drivers think of the design of the loading spaces and docks where they have to work? We covered building design from a truck driver’s point of view. (RDC, Issue 4, 2002, “Truck Driver Design”)
• Acoustics is particularly important in elementary schools, because children have more difficulty differentiating words from background noise. But, did you know that children are also prone to temporary hearing loss because of middle ear infections, with some studies reporting that 13 – 15% of students in a classroom are affected by an ear infection at any one time, making great acoustics an even more important factor in school design? (RDC, Issue 3, 2002, “Enhanced Learning: School Acoustical Design”)

Every designer brings preconceived notions to his or her design projects. But designers and users can experience places differently and in ways that may be inconsistent with established design practices.

• Human behavior in sustainable buildings is not always easy to anticipate (RDC, Issue 2, 2009, “Knowledge, Expectations, and Behavior in Green Buildings” and Issue 1, 2009, “Psychological Responses to Green Workplaces”)
• Particular aspects of the physical environment have been linked to creative human behavior.  (RDC, Issue 2, 2009 “Places Where People are Creative” and Issue 3, 2008, “Workplace Design and Employee Creativity/Innovativeness” and Issue 1, 2008, “Designing Places for Creative Work”)
• Contact with nature is restorative, but so are some man-made places (RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Restorativeness”)
• People prefer outdoor scenes with water in them, even if they can’t see the water.  (RDC, Issue 2, 2007, “Water Makes a Difference”)
• When people are emotionally ambivalent or simultaneously experiencing positive and negative emotions, creative thinking can be enhanced. (RDC, Issue 4, 2006, “Unusual Spaces May Indeed Increase Creativity”)
• Adding bookshelves to a room will make it appear more spacious. (RDC, Issue 4, 2006, “Make Rooms Look Bigger - Add Open Bookshelves”)
• Adding a marked crosswalk will make crossing safer for pedestrians, but only in certain situations. If not properly placed, marked crosswalks can actually increase pedestrian accidents. (RDC, Issue 2, 2004, “Pedestrian Safety: Is the Simple Solution the Right One?”)
• Open-office plans are popular and can help people work in new and different ways. Yet, a study of 13,000 office workers found that the most important design feature in an office environment, from the workers’ perspectives, was being able to concentrate without distractions – something that’s not possible in most open-office spaces. (RDC , Issue 2, 2003, “Supporting Concentration in Work Environments”
• Since most right-handed people turn right at a crossing, it makes sense to put the highest-price merchandise or most interesting features on the right, correct? Not if you are designing in Great Britain. In the United Kingdom where cars travel on the left side of the road, only 45% of right-handers turned right at action decision points. (RDC, Issue 2, 2003, “Right Turns, Left Turns”)

Design of all types deals with the core of human experience. The fundamentals of human place experience are consistent across all sorts of spaces, and there are synergies between research done in each design field. Architects can learn from landscape architects, landscape architects can learn from architects, industrial designers can learn from interior designers, interior designers can learn from architects, and so on.

• Design and management of urban green areas can benefit from input from health practitioners, designers, and natural resource managers. (RDC, Issue 3, 2009, “Creating Life-Enhancing Urban Open Spaces”)
• Chairs, and the ways we use them, are changing – and staying the same.  (RDC, Issue 2, 2009, “Rethinking Seating”)
• Literature reviews provide valuable tips for people designing retail spaces (RDC, Issue 3, 2008, “Designing Effective Retail Spaces”)
• As more meetings become virtual, it is important to design meeting spaces that support both co-located and virtual meetings.  (RDC, Issue 2, 2008, “Designing Meeting Spaces that Support Both Local and Virtual Collaboration”)
• The importance of art in healthcare environments should not be underestimated.  ((RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Enhancing Patient Experiences with Art” and Issue 2, 2008 “Art in Healthcare Environments”)
• Spaces can have many different types of values that designers should consider. (RDC, Issue 2, 2007, “Assigning Positive Value to Spaces”)
• Research has uncovered several ways that physical environments can encourage people to climb stairs. (RDC, Issue 4 2006, “Getting People to Use the Stairs”)
• Place experiences happen everywhere. Shopping malls are designed as entertainment destinations – and so can parks, zoos, museums, and urban downtowns. (RDC, Issue 2, 2004, ”Shopping as Entertainment: The Mall as a Happening Place”)
• Environmental psychologists and ergonomic experts have spent a lot of energy developing optimum operating room designs and other disciplines can learn from their experiences. (RDC, Issue 3, 2003, “Lessons from Operating Rooms”)
• Interior and exterior place design can both have a significant impact on crime control. (RDC, Issue 1, 2003, “Controlling Crime Through Design”)
• Accessibility design does not begin or end at the building door. Creating accessible places means considering best-practices across disciplines, including designing functional approaches and entrances for a full range of weather conditions, even for those with mobility problems. (RDC, Issue 2, 2003, “Welcoming Places for All: Thinking Beyond ADA Guidelines”)

We do not experience places one sense at a time, but holistically – all of our sensory mechanisms are continuously employed. Each sense can be used to augment or reduce the impression being created by the other senses.

• Music can help heal. (RDC, Issue 3, 2009, “Music in Cardiac Care Environments”)
• Light levels have a profound influence on human experience.  (RDC, Issue 3, 2009, “Light Levels and Perceived Openness”)
• Aircraft noise can be detrimental to children’s mental health. (RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Exposures to Noise and Deteriorating Neighborhoods affect Mental Health”)
• School design dramatically effects student performance.  (RDC, Issue 1, 2009, “Reducing Noise Problems in Classrooms” and Spring, 2008, “School Design and Student Problem Behavior”)
• Lighting is an influential design tool for how people use places. (RDC Issue 2, 2008, “Using Lighting to Influence Space Use”)
• Successful places and objects reflect our evolutionary past. (RDC, Issue 1, 2008, “Arguments for Biophilic Architecture”)
• Any pleasant smell will improve the performance of a retail space, but some smells might be more effective than others. (RDC, Issue 4, 2006, “Good Smell Never Hurts”)
• Lighting quality and perception can affect work performance outcomes (RDC, Issue 2, 2006, “Lighting and Daylighting Knowledge Review"
• A new literature review on collaborative work environments provides a useful and concise summary of research on how people collaborate and what we know about design interventions to facilitate work collaborations (RDC, Issue 2, 2005, “Collaborative Work Environments”;
• The right sort of background music can increase the money spent in restaurants (RDC, Issue 4, 2003, “Classical Music Increases Money Spent in Restaurants”) and stores (RDC, Issue 1, 2004, “Retail Design – 1-2-3”).
• Just as scientists have shown that scents can relax, they have also been shown to affect task performance. (RDC, Issue 2, 2004, “Peppermint Odor Improves Performance of Tedious Tasks”)
• Scents and sounds can enhance a healing environment (RDC, Issue 2, 2003, “Hospital Designers Become ‘Sense Aware’”; Issue 4, 2002, “Lemon Scent Reduces Agitation”) and scents can easily be introduced into a variety of environments with diffusers.

People need to take mental breaks continuously during the course of the day. Positive distractions and access to nature can provide just the sort of refreshing nudge people need for optimum place experience and performance.

• Gardens can be designed as alternatives to air-conditioning. (RDC, Issue 1, 2009 “Sustainable Cooling in Gardens”)
• Want calming and attractive hospital rooms? Add plants. (RDC, Issue 4, 2008, “Plants Increase Hospital Room Attractiveness”)
• People are happier when looking at trees than inanimate objects and are happiest when viewing spreading trees. (RDC, Issue 4, 2006, “Spreading Tree Forms Desirable”)
• The aim of a healing garden is to provide a place of respite and renewal. Yet such a goal has to include the different needs of patients, visitors, and staff. An evaluation of how 3 healing gardens at a pediatric cancer center were used and appreciated provides insight into maximizing the use of healing gardens for diverse populations. (RDC, Issue 1, 2006, “Healing Gardens: Case Study Results and Design Implications”)
• It seems intuitive that outdoor views and plants can decrease stress for office workers. But how might plants and views affect people when used together? (RDC, Issue 3-4, 2005, “Workplace Windows and Plants - Identifying the Best Stress Relievers”)
• Aquariums have repeatedly been shown to positively influence state of mind, with the general population and with special populations, such as Alzheimer’s patients. (RDC, Issue 4, 2003, “More Evidence of the Positive Influence of Aquariums”)
• Housing complexes with more trees and grass present have been linked to lower violence levels (RDC, Issue 1, 2002, “Designing with Nature to Reduce Crime") and supportive environments with natural elements can be used to reduce attention deficit symptoms in children. (RDC Issue 2, 2002, “ADD Children: Nature’s Helping Hand")

AND. . . designers can’t ignore the value of learning from others’ experience by reading post-occupancy evaluations (POEs).

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