A Study on Workers' Patterns of Space Use and Verbal Communication in Workplaces With and Without Partition Walls

Abstract

This study compared workers' space use and verbal communication patterns in a big open plan workplace (WOP) to those in the same workplace with partition walls (WP) that separate the specialized spans, and clarified workers' space use and verbal communication in terms of post and specialty. It is found that in both workplaces, workers spent over 55% of time staying nearby individual workstations, where around 50% verbal communication took place. Without the partition walls, the workers tended to stay 3.5% and to communicate 5.1% longer at the "Other Specialty". Finally, suggestions on improving current layouts are proposed.