Learn to Walk in Your Occupant’s Shoes, Think “Shopping Experience”
Image: kamikazecactus | Flickr
When you design an architectural space, are you concerned with how you might push or pull your occupant while they travel through it? What about when they are standing still? Your occupant’s frame of reference serves to balance them — and you, as the architect, can really play upon this factor.
In essence, you are creating a “shopping experience” for your occupant, and this can apply to more that just retail type architecture. Just as shoppers walk quickly, take their time, stop to browse or stop to rest…your architecture needs to provide good opportunities for your occupants to speed up or slow down.
Like in the painting Four-Way Intersection (above), people can be asked to show different amounts of energy at different points in our designs. Just imagine walking along the sidewalks in the painting — it’s a good thing that there is an intersection providing not only a resting point, but also a chance to regain that frame of balance and reference.
Negotiate Your Occupant’s Efforts
Occupants go through your building spaces and often this takes energy — physically, mentally and even emotionally. So, let me ask you this: What does your design do with their energy? Does it use it efficiently, creatively or do you simply waste it.
Imagine an occupant traveling through a museum design. Will it work better to save the best for last? Or should the important design moments be revealed to them along their journey — in “bite-sized” pieces?
Really, it is all a negotiation, where you must balance their attention, their physical energy and their emotional state.
The IKEA Experience
The store IKEA does an interesting job regarding what I’m talking about. Here is a breakdown of a customer’s experience at IKEA in the United States:
- At first, shoppers are guided through a winding path where they can see vignettes of fully integrated uses for IKEA’s products. This is where they “shop” for the large ticket items — getting in their heads what they might want.
- Next, shoppers are treated to the inviting smells of a meal in their restaurant, offering a much needed break to shoppers who have been “on their feet” for a while. After their meal, they are fully refreshed and prepared to go through the rest of the store experience.
- Now they can grab a shopping cart and wade through the massive amounts of smaller home accessories and gadgets. This calls for a different kind of attention. They travel through these store sections until they reach the warehouse.
- Once in the warehouse part of the store, shoppers can load their large purchase items onto special furniture carts and work their way to the registers to pay.
- You would think it might be over, but while at the registers shoppers are again greeted to the enticing aromas of food like freshly baked cinnamon buns and coffee. This is a great idea — as if to treat shoppers for all of their energy spent. This becomes the perfect treat to end their shopping experience and/or wait while they get help from IKEA staff to load those extra large items that need to brought out from the “back”.
When you design, design a great journey for your occupants but really make certain to consciously account for their energy and attention levels. Your designs will become that much more functional, beautiful and memorable in their “eyes”.
Please Tell Me What You Think
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I love the Thiebaud painting and was delighted to see it here having recently attended a retrospective of his work at the Pasadena Museum California Art.
In respect to the IKEA shopping experience, it’s one of those things that works only a few times before the whole experience feels like a tour d’force. I become resentful of having to make my way through the quagmire when I just wanted a new light fixture and a few bulbs. Your point of needing a resting place is a good one; not just in a physical sense but visually as well.
Wendy,
You bring up a good point about the IKEA shopping experience. I’m glad that they have those “Shortcuts” so shoppers can bypass some of those steps (as I outlined in the post above). Although, I must admit, they still need to be a bit more flexible.
I guess they are trying to attract shoppers that will purchase not only more, but also higher priced ticket items. The “forced” feeling may just be a part of their business strategy.
However, for architects…providing some additional flexibility for your occupants as they travel through your building could have many advantages.
Thanks for your insightful comment!
The Ikea round tour is controversial, but it is very important to their business strategy and has shown to positively impact purchasing behaviors more than it negatively effects the customer’s perception of Ikea. In theory it may help to reinforce a unique “branded” experience that separates itself from its competition.
I am reminded of a trip to the Biltmore House in Asheville. Frederick Law Olmstead designed the approach to be a meandering journey through the grounds that withheld the house from view until the very last second. Legend says he thought nature was the real beauty of the property and did not want this to be overlooked by the looming giant of a castle in the foreground. This also makes a memorable moment when first seeing the gates of the house. Ikea’s tour forces you to consider each product segment in front of you just as Olmstead’s approach forces you to recognize the beauty of the Asheville forest and approach, and just when you thought you were tired of it…the impactful “gotcha” moment happens, the house appears in view.
I think retailers could learn from this strategy, designing an approach that winds your customer through the store and allows for highlighting key products initially hidden from view for creating memorable experiences.
The alternative, an open format, where customers can just run to what they want may cause them to overlook some other products in your store they may want. It also decreases the differentiation between the competition and could risk turning your product into a commodity (sold purely on price). (Much like what has happened in the furniture industry today). When trying to maximize sales per square foot, a good designer that is aware of the financial goals of the retailer is worth their weight in gold.
John, thank you for your thoughtful comments. I think that you bring up some excellent points and I do agree that Ikea is well aware of its somewhat “controversial round tour” and its overall effectiveness regarding customer behavior and branding. What is good, is that they did place design focus on the experiential path that customers take — and I think many other retailers should really take a second look at their store experience from the customer’s perspective too.
All in all, I also think many other commercial building “types” could improve significantly if architects would place real focus on their occupant’s experiential path.