December 28, 2017

The most read workplace stories from the last twelve months

by Mark Eltringham • Architecture, Facilities management, Features, Technology, Workplace, Workplace design

One of the greatest joys of online publishing is the opportunity it offers to reflect on the demonstrable preoccupations and interests of an informed audience. We can see what professionals see as the most important issues they face by what they read in the UK’s most widely read publication in its field. It’s especially heartening to see that those do not include the usual glib misdirections about Millennials, gimmicky office design, robots, open plan and ‘trends’ that have been more or less commonplace for years. We can leave those to others. Instead you have been seeking out stories that challenge the lazy mainstream narratives, reflect the reality of the endlessly shifting landscape of work, understand the challenges involved and retain a focus on the human beings at the centre of it all. So, here are the ten most read pieces from Workplace Insight published over the past 365 days. More →

November 24, 2017

White Paper: intuitive design and the changing face of workplace interactions

by Oliver Ronald • Briefing, Features, Premium Content, Workplace design

In his famous 1988 book The Design of Everyday Things, the cognitive scientist Donald Norman suggests that the way we interact with objects and our surroundings is determined almost entirely by their design. People cannot be the primary reason things succeed or fail, because they are constant, while the design of the object itself is the variable. People can expect to learn how to use things better, but without an underlying people-centric and intuitive approach to design, the design will fail to some degree or other. He concludes that the designer should focus their attention on the interaction between people and the design of objects and surroundings. This principle becomes more relevant with each passing day, as the number of interactions we have with designed objects increases. This is most obvious with regard to our interactions with technology, but it is also apparent across our entire lives.