Re-nesting – The Long Read
Even if as you read this it isn’t officially autumn yet, you know that summer is past and we are beginning to settle into another winter slog toward Spring and a return to indoor-outdoor...
What is Home-y?
Many a quest is underway to create a place where someone or other, or some group or other, will feel at home. Workplaces, restaurants, stores, healthcare facilities . . . you name it, even actual...
The Most Common and Important Errors Design Professionals Seem to Make
None of us are perfect, even people who design for a living. Unfortunately, design professionals regularly do the following things, which are oh so very un-good for the people using what they’ve designed: Signalling...
For the love of Robots…
Although more and more things around us are being automated, from hotel check-ins to whole dining experiences, that doesn’t mean that we necessarily like working with a robot or anything “smart”. Did you know...
Photographing everything in your home?
I love this article. Barbara Iweins has photographed each and every thing in her home and Oscar Holland of CNN discusses her images in a recent article (“A Photographer Cataloged All 12, 795 Items...
Plants = meditation
Researchers found that looking at plants and guided meditation have similar effects on our mental state. Archary and Thatcher, investigating recovery from mental fatigue (which also degraded mood) found that “distress significantly decreased for...
Benefits of looking at art and cultural content online
Trupp and colleagues found there are significant benefits to looking at visual art and cultural content electronically, even very briefly: “When experienced in-person, engagement with art has been associated—in a growing body of evidence—with...
Circadian lighting and sleep
Benedetti and colleagues found that circadian lighting in offices can improve how well people sleep at night. They “tested the effects of optimized dynamic daylight and electric lighting on circadian phase of melatonin, cortisol...
Art!
Almost all of us have art of some sort in our homes, but that art can range from a Picasso to a first finger painting by a grandchild. Art can be most useful in...
Gardening is good for you – more evidence!
Researchers determined, via a study published in PLoS ONE, that “many people may indeed reap mental health benefits from working with plants — even if they’ve never gardened before. . . . gardening activities...
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...
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...
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. . . ....
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...
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...
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...
The bolder the colour, the more we pay?
Garay, Perez, and Pulga probed responses to colour palettes used in paintings and report that “Most existing literature has ignored the potential effects that color intensity may have on art prices. . . ....
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