design research

Chuquichambi and colleagues’ work confirms that humans prefer curved lines to sharp angled ones.  The research team reports that “Lines contribute to the visual experience of drawings. People show a higher preference for curved than sharp angled lines. We studied preference for curvature using drawings of commonly-used objects drawn by design students. We also investigated the relationship of that preference with drawing preference. Experiments 1 and 2 revealed preference for the curved drawings in the laboratory and web-based contexts, respectively.

Uziel and Tomer Schmidt-Barad investigated how the decisions to be alone and to be with others influence wellbeing and their findings confirm the importance effects of control on wellbeing.  The research duo report that “Stable social relationships are conducive to well-being. . . . The present investigation suggests that . . . social interactions increase ESWB [experiential subjective well-being] only if taken place by one's choice. Moreover, it is argued that choice matters more in a social context than in an alone context because experiences with others are amplified.

Jiang and colleagues have found, via a study using immersive virtual environment (IVE) techniques, that views of green spaces through windows can make it easier to move from one part of a building to another effectively and efficiently;  their findings are readily applicable to non-healthcare space types.  The team reports that “Participants’ wayfinding performances were interpreted using several indicators, including task completion, duration, walking distance, stop, sign-viewing, and route selection. . . .

Yin and Huang studied factors that might encourage conspicuous consumption.  They report that “People’s schedules are jointly determined by their biological clock and social clock. However, their social clock often deviates from the biological clock (e.g., having to get up earlier than one’s natural wake-up time for work or study, having to stay up to work night shifts or meet a project deadline)—a phenomenon known as ‘social jetlag.’ How does social jetlag impact consumer behavior?

Cui and teammates probed how the design of outdoor spaces at hospitals can influence staff stress levels.  They found that “several [previously conducted] studies have revealed that even short-term exposure to outdoor space has a decompression effect. . . . [in the study conducted by the Cui lead group] EEG measurement equipment was utilized to obtain the value of β wave (vβw) that represents the stress and anxiety of staff in three different outdoor spaces: open, traffic, and rest. . . . The proportion of natural elements, such as landscape . . . and waterscape . . .