IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 42

The Human
Factor
by Peter Andrew

42

One of the major problems in the design industry
today can be traced back to two things: time and
process. Neither of these problems is unique to
design, and in many ways they're the result of the
pace and structure of today's business practices.
The procurement process doesn't necessarily
support good design. Competition and proposal
timelines, even programming phases, are so brief
it's difficult to have the space you need to design
thoughtfully. And then after designers have given
away their intellectual property and their ideas to
win a project, the client's question is always: "How
efficient can you be, how quickly can you deliver
an outcome?"

What's often missing in the design process today is
the human factor, which is important in more ways
than one. First, the best design results from a
fundamental understanding of how human
behavior is affected by space, and vice-versa. Take
the modern workspace: to design a successful
workspace, you have to be able to anticipate how
someone will behave in that space. What does it
feel like for a user to be in that space? Workplace
strategy is all about understanding how the
physical environment is a tool businesses can use to
drive the performance of the organization, to
optimize and perhaps change the culture and
practices of the organization.

The absence of time means we're fully engaging in
the design process less and less, while clients are
asking for more and more. One of the challenges is
that clients don't necessarily know what they want,
and so they don't clearly articulate what they need.
Hence the design process often becomes an
exploration of "let's try this, let's try that."
Designers look at option after option until
something feels "right." Technology has enabled
this to a degree: designers can now come up with
endless numbers of schemes to review. It's a
problem in part because we're not giving younger
practitioners a real sense for how design can work.
They sit in front of machines and arrange things in
CAD to tight budgets, and then the firm leadership
will come along with a bit of pizzazz at the end. The
technology has made the process even faster, and
that's spurred a disconnect.

To be more strategic, we need to push clients harder,
help them figure out what they want before the
design process even starts. That's the second reason
the human factor is so key. As a workplace
strategist I spent years working with businesses to
delineate their wants and needs for a space,
compiling those ideas into a detailed document
that outlined a program, a budget, and maybe some
design principles. But over and over again I saw
those documents translated into something that
was only partially understood. The problem, I came
to realize, wasn't necessarily with what was in the
document, the problem was that it was a document.
When you engage with a client you have these
deep, rich conversations about all sorts of things.
When you file a report, you're taking maybe 10% of
that conversation-and you can't convey the body
language or any other subtle "markers" you'd see in
person-to a designer who picks it up and reads it.
You don't know what's going through that person's
head, what they're going to read and pay attention
to, and what they won't.



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015

IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015
Contents
From IIDA
Behind the Issue
Contributors
Viewpoints
The Innovation Insurrection
Lens Flare
The Once and Future King of Commerce
Point/Counterpoint
All Around the World
Inspiration
Colophon
Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Cover2
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 1
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Contents
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 3
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 4
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - From IIDA
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Behind the Issue
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 7
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Contributors
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 9
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Viewpoints
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 11
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - The Innovation Insurrection
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 13
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 14
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 15
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 16
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 17
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 18
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 19
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Lens Flare
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 21
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 22
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 23
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 24
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 25
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 26
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 27
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 28
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 29
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - The Once and Future King of Commerce
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 31
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 32
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 33
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 34
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 35
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 36
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 37
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 38
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 39
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Point/Counterpoint
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 41
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 42
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 43
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 44
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 45
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - All Around the World
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 47
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 48
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 49
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 50
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 51
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Inspiration
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 53
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - 54
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Colophon
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Design Buzz
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Cover3
IIDA Perspective - Fall/Winter 2015 - Cover4
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