Good user experience (UX) design considers how people feel about products and services and caters for their needs – and space design works exactly the same way. Experience design is all about people’s needs; making products and services useful and usable as well as aesthetically pleasing at the same time. It’s also about integrating technology that supports functionality and convenience for people.
When we design for physical spaces, we need to consider where and how people spend their time, what activities they do within that space, and the sequence in which they do them. Colours, textures, ambience design (lighting, music, etc.), and ergonomics are also integral parts of the space design process.
What does UX have to do with spatial design?
To ensure people feel good in physical spaces, UX designers need a variety of skills; experience design, service design, ergonomics and preferably architectural design skills (like interior design). These disciplines share similar methods and approaches – even their deliverables are alike.
In UX, designers create wireframes to display the layout of a website or an app, as well as to show features and interactivity. In architecture, floor plans are produced to map out the space and to show the flow of activities and movements in addition to indicating furniture layout. Architects and interior designers produce mood boards; UX designers create mock-ups to communicate the vision of the product, and so on.
Success factors: The human-centred design approach
Translating brand ideas, stories, and customer journeys into three dimensions requires a systematic design process.
You need to follow certain principles and apply a range of techniques; we call this the ‘human-centred design process’ in UX, where people are the heart of the design process. Human-centred design is a creative problem-solving approach in which we build empathy with people we’re designing for.
Therefore, the following points focus on people rather than technical implementations.
1. Design for simple and engaging experiences
We have to remember that people always enter space with different intents, goals, and mindsets. Some people will be willing to engage more, whilst others will just pass through the space. In order to engage with as many visitors as possible, you need to design for experiences that are short but impactful.
Experiences that reward longer interactions but do not require them will result in deeper engagements from your visitors.
If you design a congress booth, for example, you should design for various levels of engagement. Offer incentives for those who are willing to interact with your space longer, but impress the ones passing by so they can also leave with a memorable experience.
2. Provide intuitive navigation through space
When designing for physical space, you need to remember that
way finding is nothing more than a structured number of decisions leading to the destination.
Therefore, it is crucial to create systematised pathways with simple and consistent navigational choices that are easily recognisable by everyone. We should aim to create opportunities for incidental interactions that delight people. We have done our jobs successfully when minor interactions result in major experiences.
Visiting a hospital can be a stressful experience. Intuitive way finding tools are key components for improving this experience (i.e. landmarks, walking directions and paths, as well as intuitive icons, symbols, and terminology). Way finding encompasses all aspects of knowing where you are and successfully navigating to your destination.
3. Empower your customers and provide them with an element of surprise
When people can have an immediate effect on their environment they become more engaged.
Physical forms and affordances are important to provide people with clues and triggers for actions. As a process of meaning-making, serendipity refers to the phenomenon of spontaneously understanding unexpected things, including time, space, people, and contents.
4. Don’t let people make the wrong decision
Whatever we create, we have to validate that the customer is always right. We must never let visitors fail to find their way or orient themselves in the physical space. We can eliminate making wrong decisions by evaluating the customer’s journey. It’s important to look for things like how people are moving through the space, their flow of moving around, and whether all these fit in well with our narrative through space and the wider context of the journey they are taking.
Perceptions of safety also influence the nature and the extent that people use spaces and places.
Security, for example, should never come across as intimidating in either demeanour or appearance.
5. Experience first, then technology
As designers, we should always consider first how we want our users and audience to feel. After this is defined, we can design the experience and create the space for it. We always need to ensure that the communication and messaging within the capacity of the space works as intended before we work on the integration of technology.
Smart environments are based on the principle that computerised intelligence detects the human context, understands behaviour and intent, and then proactively supports people in their tasks.
Well-implemented digital services of this nature are invisible and ubiquitous (i.e. wireless technologies, touch-sensitive surfaces, interactive wall spaces, motion detectors, camera recognitions, etc.) so architecture eventually becomes the interaction interface between humans and computers.
6. Inclusion by design
Most importantly, we should aim to design for the broadest audience possible.
Assuming that everyone is a first-time visitor, being aware of accessibility guidelines can help with designing places that are inclusive. Using a universal visual language that is understood by everyone, or establishing clear sight lines to aid navigation are just a few amongst those rules.
Decisions about the design, planning and management of places can enhance or restrict a sense of belonging. They can increase or reduce feelings of security, stretch or limit boundaries, promote or reduce mobility, and improve or damage health. When designing spaces meant to foster a sense of well-being and safety (like a hospital, for example), inclusive design from the very start is essential.
7. Triangulate – connect the dots
Triangulation can be a powerful technique to validate ideas and design solutions through a combination of various methods and metrics. In user experience design we start with a clearly defined strategy (goals and objectives), followed by research (the assessment of needs) to gain insight. In service design, we aim to orchestrate the vision, the experience we want to create, and the design of various touchpoints into a holistic service.
We use personas and use cases that we map onto journey maps to illustrate interactions (people to people and people to technology) and to create an overall service blueprint. Testing solutions early and frequently in the design process will result in ideas that actually work with the audience. Good spatial design relies on the same principles.
While architecture, service design, and UX are all related and require overlapping skill sets, they approach the design process slightly differently. When designing physical spaces to encourage interaction (either with people or the space itself), the human-centred approach taken in user experience design is necessary.
The space becomes about more than simply helping people move through – it’s about providing a service (as in a hospital), delivering information (as in a congress booth), or both. To provide a genuinely user-centred physical space, it’s critical to adopt a user experience approach when designing both the experience and the space itself .
References:
David, Moody 20015. http://www.howdesign.com/featured-design-news/experience-design-public-spaces/
David, Richards 2013. https://stimulant.com/designing-brand-experiences-for-tradeshows-and-events-common-questions-from-clients/
Imeh Akpan 2014. Space, Place, And Engagement With Digital, UXPA London 2014, July.
Ken Worpole and Katharine Knox 2007. https://www.jrf.org.uk/report/social-value-public-spaces
Raven, A., Laberge, J., Ganton, J., Johnson, M. (2014). Wayfinding in a Hospital: Electronic Kiosks Point the Way. User Experience Magazine, 14(3). Retrieved from http://uxpamagazine.org/wayfinding-in-a-hospital/
Design Council, https://www.designcouncil.org.uk/sites/default/files/asset/document/inclusion-by-design.pdf
Avital Shapira, https://avitalshapira.wordpress.com/tag/wayfinding-for-websites/