Getting under the(ir) skin: Applying personas and scenarios with body-environment research for improved understanding of users’ perspective in architectural design

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to move established positions in architectural design by discussing a more refined user perspective. The motivation is threefold. Firstly, fields like environmental psychology and cognitive science for architecture have in recent years brought novel insights on the embodied nature of human spatial experience, and the extensive effects of the built environment on people’s psychosomatic health and behaviour that are not well-captured by existing building standardization systems. Secondly, while the fast growing trends of user-centred and research-based design in architecture have showed that users’ experience is a valuable source of design knowledge, the methods for incorporating this wealth of new insights in the architectural design process are still underdeveloped. Finally, the example of the newly built psychiatric department in Aabenraa, Denmark, whose interior, despite an international architectural award in 2016, had to be re-designed one year after construction due to poor understanding of the users, indicates existing discrepancies in the current approaches to translating research information in user-centred design. To address these issues, we discuss the experiences from a new masters’ course in ‘Architecture, Health, and Well-being’ and propose that user-centred methods like ‘personas’ and ‘scenarios’ used in IT, marketing, and product development also have a potential to develop more in-depth research-informed user perspectives. As well as, to help students envision and strengthen the architectural quality of the programming and building design throughout the architectural design process, by supporting a ‘design empathic’ understanding and immersion in user perspectives.

‘Personas for lighting’. Three methods to develop personas for the indoor lighting environment

“…To verify the consistency of persona models [7], product development, marketing, and architectural design: energy, green buildings usage, and user-centred design [2]. The reviewed papers indicate that there are various theoretical and practical approaches to persona construction, representation, time of creation, uses, types of environments they are created for and verification methods.…”

“…Working with personas is a widespread technique in marketing, commerce, IT, design, and the social sciences that helps sales experts, designers, and researchers comprehend, and study users' behaviours, needs, goals [1] and model characters. The persona concept also helps to communicate with stakeholders and design-ers while evaluating design ideas [1][2][3], therefore it could be potentially used in lighting research and practice.…”

“…Personas, seen as descriptions of a fictitious person, fulfil a need for a holistic perspective on humans but depend on the context in which they are used in design [1,2]. Personas, as imaginary characters, enable designers to envision the users' needs, goals and wants, and to focus on user-oriented solutions.…”

“…Personas are created to help designers comprehend and clarify users' goals and behaviours. They can lead to better design of the final product or space [2]. Practitioners may see personas as a beneficial tool to create a specific outcome and the means to better communicate with users and guide design decisions by facilitating the design process [3,4].…”

Thermal Personalities of Older People in South Australia: A Personas-Based Approach to Develop Thermal Comfort Guidelines

“…Originally proposed by software developer Alan Cooper [32] as a way to represent the goals and motivations of different types of prospective software users, personas are typically developed from both quantitative and qualitative data and are presented as fictional characters with a name, appropriate image, and a narrative. Personas can be used to summarise and communicate research about people [33], to link such research with design ideas [34], and can stimulate empathy or understanding of user perspectives, particularly where these perspectives are different from those of the designer's [35].…”