Flying high!

It may seem that planes, trains, automobiles, buses, and other vehicles that move you from place to place (and some that you’ve only seen on a screen somewhere, such as spacecraft), are designed entirely by engineers, one of whom is deputized to pick a garish or just plain ugly print for the upholstery (probably as part of a dare from colleagues).  It turns out there are all sorts of designers involved with how modes of transport and the hubs at which they depart and arrive are designed—and these people really do have your best interests at heart.

Lots of their work is focused on getting travellers into better moods, by creating positive pleasant spaces for them to spend time while moving or still.  Often they’re trying to make sure that the sorts of scents, sounds, etc., that you prefer to fill a space.  Why?  Experiencing preferred conditions make it more likely you’ll be in a good mood.  Why all this attention on moods?  When we’re in a better mood, however, we’ve gotten there, our brains work better (that means we’re better at problem-solving, decision-making, creative thinking, etc.) and we are nicer to other people—both of which can be very handy among the travelling public.  We’ve talked about designing to improve mood before, here.

Transit Stations

Even the seats in a waiting area are carefully placed, usually to make sure that there are a variety of options for how people configure themselves because:

• Women are most comfortable talking with people in front of them while men prefer to sit beside conversation partners.
• We all need to take an “eye contact break” from each other every so often, so chairs are often set up in clusters where we’re not sitting nose-to-nose with our conversation partners but at some sort of angle to each other so we can look away for a moment without seeming rude, particularly if there’s something like a plant, piece of art, etc., a few degrees, angle-wise away from the eyes of whomever we’re talking to, that way looking away isn’t a dramatic act. Curving lines of chairs can be particularly good for this.
• When we’re waiting, we feel most comfortable if we have a view of the action, and when waiting to travel, the action we’re most interested in is what time we’ll be leaving. So providing as many screens and seat arrangements as possible to make sure that can happen is a good idea.
• Spaces where the seats are arranged so it’s harder to make eye contact with each other (e.g., rows of chairs facing in the same direction), are more likely to be judged as crowded than those where eye contact is easier, even if both are actually the same size.
• In any set of waiting area seats, there are always some that are more popular and others that are less. The more popular set are generally in just the sort of location that our very earliest selves would have felt good about frequenting. They have a view of the entrance to the space (no surprises!) and the space seems particularly secure because (remember we’re still working with our many aeons ago brains) the back of the person seated there is “protected,” the chair has a high back, is against a column or a large plant, etc.  Just think about the most popular seats in restaurants where people are allowed to seat themselves;  they’re in high-backed booths and on the side of the booth with the best view of the door.  Similarly, think about food courts in airports, train stations, etc.  They’re brightly lit wide open spaces where the primitive us would have felt exposed and vulnerable, just the sort of place that proto-human would have scooted through as quickly as possible, which is just what station, etc., owners want you to do, to buy whatever you’re going to buy and get out of the way of other buyers, slinking off to a darker, more protected corner to eat whatever you have gathered in the food court.
• Whenever possible extra capacity is built into waiting areas—not just because from time to time there may be a snow storm or thunderstorm that shuts down all travel. We feel best in a space when no more than about 70% of seats in an area are in use—and remember, designers are desperate to try to keep you in a good mood.
• With moveable seats, people can sit with or without others pretty much as they choose, but anything that can be picked up can become a weapon, and people waiting, especially if there are delays, can be quite unhappy—so you’re more apt to see heavier furniture that can be slid from place to place that anything that can actually be picked up and relocated.
• It works out well that in most cases once we get into a vehicle, whether that’s an airplane or a bus, that all of the seats are facing in the same direction. Facing in the same direction prevents us from making eye contact with each other and that’s good when we might become stressed because if we’re stressed and make eye contact we get even more tense, particularly if the person we make eye contact with is also under stress—and there are lots of things someone can be stressed out by as they travel.

Raising arms!

Most places where you’ll sit as you travel or wait to travel also have arms, which means that while you’re sitting you have a territory all your own and it’s more likely that you can stay a comfortable distance from other people, no space invasions.  Nothing lightens our hearts like our own territory.  We feel secure in them, and security is always important to humans sharing spaces with other humans.  We’re still operating with the same minds we were using aeons ago and way back then our very survival required that we keep close track of what the others of our species were doing around us.  What they were up to might be the pleasantest of socializing, but any situation could fast turn into a fight, so being wary could be the difference between a good day and a very bad one.

Raise the roof!

A space with a higher ceiling seems larger to us than the same number of square feet under a lower ceiling, which is why transit waiting rooms that need to accommodate large numbers of people are often cavernous.  More brightly lit spaces and those with cooler coloured lights also seem larger than those with dimmer lights, which is why the spaces where you’ll wait are not only (usually) immense but also so brightly lit (we are less selfish and also have more self-control in more brightly lit spaces, which can definitely be a plus if everyone around you is, in a word, and idiot)..  There’s more information on right-sizing spaces via colour, lighting, etc., here.  If a waiting space is large enough but designers are particularly concerned about how people will get along in it, they are more likely to use warmer lighting and colours, they make it more likely we’ll seem friendlier to others and actually BE friendlier to others.

Control freaks

People are so much more comfortable, and their stress levels are so much lower when they have at least some control over their world, that people developing vehicles try to provide you with at least a few options for controlling your environment whenever they can.  That’s why there are air vents for you to adjust above your head in an aeroplane, even though they don’t make much difference in how you feel as you sit in your seat.  I’ve even seen airports where there are lights that can be turned on and off beside each seat in the waiting room, even though the overhead lights are so intense a person could do surgery as they wait for their flight, but that light, however useless it actually is, makes people feel like they have control over their environment and ups their wellbeing.

Keeping busy

We dislike being unoccupied which is just one of the reasons that the walk between airline gates and baggage claim areas are so long—building in a walk is building in busyness, and happiness—if baggage claim handlers were faster, walks could be shorter.