Video Summary

In the video today, I delve into various ways architectural design speaks to its occupants as it inherently provides “choice”. And as an architect, you hold the key as you design such architectural elements, which all affect your occupant in a multitude of ways. For instance, many of these elements either compete with each other, or work with each other, as they offer incentives (or deterrents) that may influence your occupant’s decision-making as they travel through your building design.

Follow along as I show you, through simple diagrammatic form, how you are inevitably filling your design spaces with choices — affecting the daily lives of your occupants in so many ways. As you will see, one of the lessons to be learned here is that you should be aware of what you offer to your occupants through your building designs, for they may very well choose (and do) what you offer.

Video Transcript

00:08 Maria Lorena Lehman: This is Maria Lorena Lehman with SensingArchitecture.com. In today’s video, I’m going to explore how architectural design affects occupant choice and what exactly that means for your occupants. Because hopefully as you design architecture for your occupants, you aren’t just simply trying to meet a list of programmatic requirements and trying to insert those programmatic requirements and spatial functions into allotted spaces, without giving some serious consideration into the relationships between those programmatic elements. Because each of them speaks with one another as your occupant travels through those spaces and travels from one to the other.

00:58 MLL: So, as you can see in this diagram below, we have a diagrammatic elevator here, a stairwell here, and just a simple hallway leading outward, followed by a larger Read more

Image: erix! | Flickr

An interesting finding involving one of the ways in which people decide to take action, can be traced back to how long a person spends looking at each of the choices. As was reported in an article by Scientific American, called Buying Odds Increase for Products That Are Looked at Longer, shoppers within a store that are trying to decide between two items will ultimately choose the item which they looked at longest. By tracking their subject’s eye movements, researchers determined that items were chosen when the subject gazed upon the item they chose even just half a second longer. And this was the case 70 percent of the time.

Which Architectural Elements in Your Design are Time Sensitive?

If you think about this premise that what a subject gazes upon longest, ultimately plays a large role in how they make decisions and take action, then architecture has many places within which such a finding can provide great insight into how to leverage not only architectural design aesthetic, but also its ability to bring great value for its occupants. But one must ask…At what point does design for perception become design toward persuasion? And how can you as a designer use each to bring value to your occupants?

Think about this for such buildings as Read more

Image: geraintandkim | Flickr

In a recent Boston Globe article entitled Researchers Say Sense of Touch Guides Impressions, it was found that the sense of touch really is an important factor when it comes to perception. As you may already infer, we all seem to use an initial impression of something to form a judgment — which, when needed, helps us make a decision. (1) But what factors do we all rely on when we are in the midst of making that decision, and forming a judgment?

Not surprisingly, this is one of the important questions that was asked by the team of researchers headed by Joshua Ackerman of the Sloan School of Management, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where together, his team was trying to find the connection between our bodies and our minds. They did this by using objects with different “weights, textures and harnesses” as they questioned and observed their subjects…”people passing on the street near MIT or Yale”. (1)

Here is a brief review describing three of their studies:

While holding clipboards (where some are heavy and some are light), subjects where asked to review a resumé (resting on the clipboard) and make decisions about whether that particular job applicant was serious about the given position. — Subjects associated heavy clipboards with more serious job applicants. (1)

While witnessing a “back-and-forth” between two people, subjects were asked whether it was friendly or problematic. — Subjects who had just been working on a puzzle with rough edges saw it as problematic. (1)

Subjects sitting in hard chairs (versus soft cushioned comfortable chairs) where more rigid in their negotiations over the price of a car. (1)

I think Ackerman said it best as he noted Read more

Both exterior and interior design elements of a building have the power to influence occupants, and for retail environments those occupants are potential consumers. The goal for most retail owners is to not only make sales during first time visits, but to encourage return visits so consumers become loyal customers.

THE CONSUMER’S DECISION MAKING PROCESS

Explained in the video below is some insightful information about how our human brain center works. It is useful to know that this region of the brain helps us to collect evidence before we make a decision, but did you know that there is another brain region that expresses confidence and/or awareness of that decision?

Just imagine how this might impact your building occupants, especially those that are engaging in consumer behavior.

One sure-fire way to influence customer behavior is to really understand what goes on during the decision making process. In knowing this, your designs can help to sway behavior by introducing elements at just the right time in an occupant’s experience.

Yes, consumer’s must gather evidence that goes into their behavior (whether to buy or not to buy), but much of this evidence can be collected while within a store — if a product is good and presented in just the right way.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

The scientist in the following video explains that people tend to underestimate their own confidence in a decision. Sometimes, people have made their decision, but are not yet Read more