Seeing Yourself Talking
Recent research related to seeing yourself during Zoom calls may be useful in other contexts, for example, when you see yourself in a mirror as you speak. A study published in Clinical Psychological Science...
Activity-based working appeals to some more than others…
Activity-based working (ABW) is the term applied to the system which recognises the fact that people do different tasks during the day at work, and so need a mix of work settings with the...
Designing for People with ADHD
If you’re trying to create a space where someone with ADHD will feel comfortable: Make sure that workspaces, and home offices, for example, are as distraction-free as possible. That means, only work-related items on...
What design features encourage active play?
Hunter and colleagues had this goal: “To identify features parents perceived as being relevant for their child’s active play, their own active recreation, and their coactivity. Parents . . . with preschoolers . ....
How to shape your products
Of course it depends on what product you are selling, but this is interesting research. Shi, Mai, and Mo report that “this research explores how anthropomorphic products’ humanlike body shapes influence consumer evaluation and...
For Room Rater fans – the back story
Are you an avid reader of the Room Rater Twitter account which scores what’s seen behind people in Zoom meetings, during video calls, etc. Emma Goldberg (“You’re Still on Mute,” 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/19/business/wfh-setups-rto.html) interviews one...
Blue is in!
And why shouldn’t it be (always)? Research consistently shows that no matter where on the planet you ask, people are more likely to tell you that blue is their favourite colour than any other...
What to Take on a Trip Anywhere
It’s nice to feel at home even when you aren’t-but unless your luggage is much, much larger than the suitcase I travel with, you can’t take much of your home with you when you...
How to Design a Museum – The Long Read
Museums store some of our species’ greatest work, as well as impressive achievements by Mother Earth—they are places where we go to prepare to think great thoughts, and, occasionally to do a little high-powered...
Library Life
Like museums, libraries seem to be the sort of spaces where we’ll either think great thoughts or gather the ideas required to do so. You may have a library in your home or may...
Worthy Waiting Areas – the Long Read
There are times when it seems that most of our lives are being spent waiting for something (for example, an appointment) or someone. Design can make waiting much more pleasant, and lots of research...
Restaurant Design
When you’re in a restaurant, it’s likely that you have at least a passing interest in eating healthy. Design can help you do just that. If you are designing a new space for an...
How to Feel Safe/Secure at Home
We’re more apt to feel safer, that where we live is more “neighbourly,” and actually be more secure when: Cooler colours predominate in the space we’re in. We’re sitting or sleeping so that we...
When to Keep Things the Same, When to Make a Change
When you’re asking yourself if you should make a change, you’re answering your own question. When a space doesn’t seem comfortable anymore, it isn’t. A place can seem less comfortable for a variety of...
Thinking while Grooving
Fukuie and colleagues report that “Hearing a groove rhythm (GR), which creates the sensation of wanting to move to the music, can also create feelings of pleasure and arousal in people, and it may...
Home or Asset?
Grant and Handelman report that “Traditionally, the home is regarded as a place of singularization that is to be aligned with the homeowner’s unique identity. This traditional meaning has come to be confronted with...
Soundscapes and Eating
Peng-Li and colleagues report that “Soft nature sounds [ocean waves] and loud restaurant noises [chattering and tableware noises] were employed to induce emotional relaxation and arousal respectively. One hundred and one healthy university students...
Safer Streets
Pappas reviewed many published studies and determined that “Visually cluttered roads, confusing signage, and broad thoroughfares that practically beg drivers to stomp on the accelerator can encourage behaviors that raise risk. . . ....
Effort and Reward
Liu and colleagues’ conclusions are likely applicable more broadly than the tested condition. They found that “participants wearing a heavy backpack gave higher esthetic scores to and generate a strong attentional bias toward the...
Risk taking kids
Flouri and teammates report that “This study used the UK’s Millennium Cohort Study to investigate the role of greenness of the child’s immediate residential area at ages 9 months and 3, 5, 7, and 11 years...
Hearing and Thinking
Radun and colleagues investigated the effects of particular sorts of sound on cognitive performance and report that “Exposure to impulsive sound (65 dB LAeq) was compared with quiet sound (35 dB LAeq) and steady-state sound (65 dB...
Does how fast we walk impact how we perceive space?
Jia and colleagues studied when people feel crowded. They determined “that walking velocity depicts pedestrian perceived congestion more accurately than density. . . . the larger the gap between the desired and actual velocities,...
Get your children playing outside!
A research team at University of Exeter has identified some cognitive benefits of playing outdoors. They report, in a study published in Child Psychiatry and Human Development, that “children who spend more time playing...
Does living in a green space help us live longer?
Brochu and collaborators link how green an area is and the death rates of residents. They “conducted a nationwide [in the United States] quantitative health impact assessment to estimate the predicted reduction in mortality...
We Like What We Make
Straffon and colleagues found that “Self-made objects tend to be favoured, remembered, valued, and ranked above and beyond objects that are not related to the self. On this basis, we set out to test...
Keep lights low at night…
The Mason team reports that their “laboratory study shows that, in healthy adults, one night of moderate (100 lx) light exposure during sleep increases nighttime heart rate, decreases heart rate variability (higher sympathovagal balance),...
Infant cries and minor keys
Zeloni and Pavani share that “In Western music and in music of other cultures, minor chords, modes and intervals evoke sadness. . . . we asked expert musicians to transcribe into music scores spontaneous...
Does which way we face make a difference to how we feel about a space?
Yildirim and colleagues investigated, via a survey distributed in Ankara, Turkey, “the effects of location of closed offices on the front facade, rear facade and side facade plans and the indoor layout (left and...
What colour to paint café walls?
Cosgun and associates report the findings of a virtual reality based research project: “This study aims to determine the effects of wall covering materials (wood, concrete and metal) used indoors on participants’ perceptual evaluations....
Should you use dividing lines on your online shop?
Ouyang and colleagues report that “Many retailers use seemingly innocuous dividing lines to separate product alternatives on their websites or product catalogs. . . . a dividing line can influence consumers’ perceived quantity of...
English