Personality, gender, and professional training all have significant effects on how humans experience the physical world that surrounds them, how they process the information that flows from it into their brains. Neuroscience research makes it clear how design can support positive experiences for different personalities, genders, and types of professional expertise.
Greenberg and colleagues probed links between personality and preferred music styles and it seems likely that their findings can be applied more generally. The team report that they “built on theory and research in personality, cultural, and music psychology to map the terrain of preferences for Western music using data from 356,649 people across six continents. . . . the patterns of correlations between personality traits and musical preferences were largely consistent across countries and assessment methods.
Researchers have learned that as the forms of cities evolve the personalities of likely residents are different, which has design implications. A team lead by Gotz (study published in American Psychologist) reports that “Rising house prices may change the personality make-up of US cities within a few years, with residents becoming increasingly open-minded – not just as wealthier people move in, but also among longer-term locals. This is according to a University of Cambridge-led study of almost two million people in the US living across 199 cities.
Wilmot and Ones link particular personality factors to success in certain sorts of jobs and their findings are useful to designers aligning design with personality, which is regularly discussed in Research Design Connections. The investigators found that when they studied ties between personality “and occupational performance (i.e., supervisory ratings of overall job performance or objective performance outcomes). . . . for 9 major occupational groups (clerical, customer service, healthcare, law enforcement, management, military, professional, sales, and skilled/semiskilled). . .
Tips for aligning with users' mindsets
Fine-tuning spaces for users
Jeon, Han, and Namstudied how preferences for particular color vary.
Ways of thinking influence ways of working
Research conducted by Tarlao, Steffens, and Guastavino confirms the many factors can influence perceptions of sound being experienced besides the actual noises themselves.
Another reason place matters
