What your Zoom background says about you
Wonder what to do about your Zoom backgrounds so you seem trustworthy? Read Lianne Kolirin’s article on CNN (2023, “The Zoom Backgrounds That Make You Look More – or Less – Trustworthy, According to...
What we can learn from Ancient City Design
Tom Seiple makes a good case for considering ancient city design as we move forward trying to resolve today’s design problems (2023, “Ancient Cities Have Lessons UX/UI Designers Can use Right Now, Fast Company,...
Nature improves Cognition
Vella-Brodrick and Gilowska conducted a literature review “examining the effects of nature interventions on the cognitive functioning of young people aged 5 to 18 years. Examples of nature interventions include outdoor learning, green playgrounds,...
Daylight reduces burnout
A team lead by Ziabari found that “The research question was to identify the connection between daylight, nature-view windows, and hospital staff burnout during Covid-19. . . . Three questionnaires were used: demographic, physical...
We take more Chances when we’re warm it seems…
Lundberg, Craig, and Peloza share that “Across four studies, we find evidence for a positive relationship between temperature and risk-taking, using multiple operationalizations of temperature and measurements of risk. . . . In particular,...
Art and Culture Differences
Trawinski and colleagues had British and Chinese people look at Western representational paintings and report that “Eye movements were recorded while participants viewed the paintings with each painting split into face, theme of the...
Designing for Gender doesn’t always work…
Dai and colleagues found that “It is common that marketers design and position pretty products more to female consumers than to male consumers, suggesting they generally believe that females have a stronger preference than...
Scents and Appetite!
Michels and colleagues share that “Before and after Trier Social Stress Test, 91 participants . . . inhaled one odor during 10 min: Scots pine, grass . . . or control (i.e., demineralized water). ....
Trees Reduces the Heat
Sahani and team determined that “Nature-based solutions (NBS) such as green (vegetation) and blue (waterbodies) infrastructure are being promoted as cost-effective and sustainable strategies for managing the heatwaves risks, but long-term monitoring evidence is...
Bergamot scents and Stress levels
Liu and colleagues studied the “effects of ambient bergamot scent on the stress levels of office workers by exposing them to the scent while stressors persisted as the workers continued to work on the...
Your Front Door Colour affects your House sale!
Zillow shares information on front door colours and home sales. During their study actual and potential home buyers answered survey questions: “Homes with a front door painted slate blue — a chalky light blue-gray...
How Gardening your front lawn promotes sociability!
Chalmin-Pui and colleagues “explore[d] why people garden in front gardens, how social cohesion may emerge from front gardening activities, and the health benefits of the presence of front gardens for residents and passersby. Front...
How Natural and Urban Soundscapes affect our Brains
Stobbe and teammates utilized functional MRI sessions and 40 natural and 40 urban soundscapes to probe “the effect of listening to urban (traffic and machinery noise) vs. natural (birds, water and wind) soundscapes on...
Learning Tricks from Set Design!
People creating movie, TV, and stage sets often need to be really ingenious. The things they lavish the most attention to likely have powerful effects on our experience of space. As Alexis Soloski (2023,...
Miniature Houses – Telling Key Stories…
Miniatures, the sorts of items that would be at home in the most intricate doll houses, are finding their ways into many retailers in North America—which is intriguing—are these tiny things helping us wax...
Nostalgia
Design can encourage people to feel nostalgic, using images, objects, or scents, for example. Abeyta and Juhl’s work, building on previous studies, “hypothesized that nostalgia, a bittersweet emotion that entails reflecting sentimentally on the...
Is Gardening good for Mental Health?
Rosa and teammates reviewed published studies and found that “some horticultural interventions plus usual care (i.e., continuing normal routine for healthy people or treatment for unhealthy ones) may reduce depressive symptoms more than usual...
Scent and Smells to help improve the Brain – Enriching lives with Scents
Woo and colleagues report that “Male and female older adults . . . age 60–85, were enrolled in the study and randomly assigned to an Olfactory Enriched or Control group. Individuals in the enriched...
Beaches are best!
Hooyberg and colleagues, using virtual reality, determined that “beaches caused lower breathing rates than urban environments and lower SCR [skin conductance responses] than green environments. . . . the heart rate, HF-HRV [high-frequency heart...
Human Art beats Robot Art
Di Dio and associates report that participants in their study “were asked to give beauty (BJ) and liking (LJ) judgments. . . . Aesthetic judgments were made in a blind-baseline condition, devoid of authorship...
Trees are good for Mental Health and Performance – the 3-30-300 Rule
Konijnendijk reports that “Having trees and other vegetation in sight from one’s home, place of work, or school has important mental health and performance benefits. . . . With public green spaces in proximity...
Nature and Patience
Xu and Ding report that “exposure to nature will lead consumers to be more patient in their waiting decisions. . . . marketers can reduce customer churn during peak or out-of-stock periods by decorating...
Biophilia in Space
Winn and colleagues report that “Natural materials, biomorphic forms, and the incorporation of plants and green elements are all strategies to implement biophilic design. Biophilic design can improve the cognitive and physiological health of...
Working from home and Cars…
Sepanta, O’Brien, and Arpan collected data from people “who started teleworking and moved at least 20 kilometres away from their original homes within two years of the beginning of COVID-19. . . . The...
Trees vs Social Media and Impact on Stress
Bailey, Anderson, and Cox “explore[d] the mechanisms of active and passive leisure influence through real-time tracking of mental states while incurring a standard ‘dose’ of social media and walking. Results indicate that social media...
Awe
Design can make it more likely people will feel awed in multiple ways, for example via exquisite workmanship or material use. Pan and Jiang studied “global self-continuity (GSC), a sense of connectedness among past,...
Autumn Fall is upon us and Winter will be here soon—how should you be preparing? Step 1 – Deal With Your Plants!
We’re spoiled at the end of the Summer. We’ve had all sorts of access to all sorts of green leafy plants, at our homes or in nearby parks or other spaces for months (well,...
Windows onto the World!
When going outside can seem like a burden, looking at it from inside seems like a better and better option. Take a minute now, while fixes are relatively easy and pleasant, to fine tune...
Add some gentle Movement in your Home….
Winter and time spent inside can be both stressful and boring. Some gentle movement in the spaces where you live will change all that. Here, we are talking about curtains that sway slightly and...
English