Senses

Sometimes people to your home have some sort of “difference” that they’d rather not be publicly discussed (although today there are many fewer topics that fit into this category than in the past) but that will significantly influence their experiences in your home, and that you should foresee as you design if you ever intend to have guests visit. For example, someone visiting may have ADHD and not want other guests, for example, their boss to know this.  A rocking chair that they can pivot ever so slightly as they join in a conversation can help that person dispel energy and keep on track as a conversation partner. The value of the movement is that it helps them work off/dispel energy and retain focus. We’ll talk more thoroughly about designing for people with ADHD or who are on the autism spectrum in a future article.

Visitors may also be colour blind or have cataracts, for example, which impair their vision.  There are all sorts of colour blindness, with all sorts of colour families being compromised in people, or not.  What sort of design ramifications are there if some of the visitors to your home might ever be colour blind?  Anything crucial should not just be identified by a colour.  It doesn’t help some visitors to tell them that the door to the loo is green, they may not be able to accurately register this colour and instead of opening the green door to the bathroom they may open the door into the room of the baby that has finally, finally drifted off to the Land of Nod.  Marking the bathroom door with a wreath, for example, and only putting a wreath on that door, so that people seeking the bathroom can be sent to the door with the wreath on it supports all visitors to your home.

Some people who find their way into your home will be hard of hearing.  One way that you can help them feel comfortable is to keep the echoing down inside—all your guests will actually thank you for this.  Make sure that there are softer, sound absorbing surfaces in every room you will visit—rugs, upholstery, wall hangings, pillow, etc.

Similarly, people with cataracts may have compromised colour vision and vision in general.  They could easily find themselves tumbling over the ottoman lurking in the shadows.  It seems to be one of those laws of entertaining that if there is something  in your home that a visitor could, even theoretically trip over, that someone will indeed topple over it.

There are some people who are just more sensitive to the sensory environment in which they find themselves than others.  These individuals are known in the psych biz as “highly sensitive people.”  You’d always want your home to have a pleasant smell and be a comfortable temperature, but if you know, or suspect, that a highly sensitive person may be coming through your home, assess the sort of experience they’ll have there really carefully, because their sensory systems will pick up on anything that isn’t tip-top.  Air out your home if possible to get rid of that residual onion smell from last week, then make sure that there are lots of throws about if a visitor is cold.  If they’re hot, taking off clothes is up to them.  Make extra sure surfaces aren’t sticky or scratchy or that your home is not neat.  Spaces that seem designed via tropical storm wind gusts are not well received by the highly sensitive.  Don’t overcompensate though by adding lots of air freshener, etc.—too much of a good thing is also too bad.