Improving Waiting Experiences (08-31-23)
Lee and Yoon studied the effects of natural design elements on the experiences of people waiting in healthcare emergency departments. They report their “findings offer empirical evidence for the positive impact of including natural elements in these waiting areas. We created four high-fidelity virtual environments that incorporated natural elements in three ways, i.e., the presence of plants, the use of nature images and natural materials, and a combination of those two, in addition to a controlled environment without natural elements.