Decreasing multisensory nuisance in an open office

Decreasing multisensory nuisance in an open office: Researching and designing for the experience of office users

Hazenoot, Thomas (TU Delft Industrial Design Engineering)

Pont, Sylvia (graduation committee)
Jaskiewicz, Tomasz (mentor)

Delft University of Technology

Design for Interaction

2020-07-01

In the past few years, many companies have made the transition from an office with closed working spaces, towards open offices. The Dutch office of IKEA CBF made the transition to an open office in 2016, to support an activity-based way of working. This new way of working has to lead to an increase in complaints, about noise and distractions within the office. Co-workers commonly related this experience nuisance to auditory stimulation, however, visual or temporal stimuli could contribute to this as well. The experience of the office was researched from a co-worker centered perspective, through interviews and contextmapping session. This revealed that co-workers mainly experience nuisance, when they are being distracted during individual focused work activities. Co-workers identified that they experience nuisance caused by six main sources, both relating to the behavior of co-workers and office facilities. Where most co-workers experienced nuisance from co-workers conversation and movement/foot traffic. The amount of nuisance a co-workers experiences is mainly dependent on their role and the amount of individual work activities they perform. nuisance, than other co-workers. Next to this the individual experiences of co-workers are influenced by factors that influence the presence of specific sources and co-workers general ability to deal with nuisance. Co-workers here most frequently identified that individual needs and a low awareness about their own effect on their surroundings, to affect their general experience of nuisance. Finally co-workers all had an equal access to tools to protect themselves from nuisance. Consequently, co-workers’ general experience of nuisance could most effectively be decreased through a design intervention that improves co-workers’ ability to protect themselves from nuisance during individual work. Next to this Co-creation activities with the Com&In teamshowed that a physical design intervention, that could be applied as an individual solution to protect co-workers from nuisance, would most likely lead to valuable insights for the Com&In team. Following I developed Fridfold, a stimulation barrier aimed at decreasing the amount of nuisance that co-workers experience from auditory and visual stimulation, while working at their desks. This design aimed to make working at an individual deskspace feel ‘fridfull’ or serene, by having a calming effect on co-workers. To achieve this Fridfold was developed to both decrease the amount of stimulation and co-workers perception of stimulation. To achieve this, Fridfold aims to decrease co-workers perception of stimulation by increasing co-workers sense of control, through the interactivity of the design, and the perceived sound damping of materials, through the application of a three-dimensional textured screen. The evaluation of the design with students and co-workers showed that the Fridfold influenced the amount of visual stimulation and improved co-workers sense of control, through the interactivity of the design. Furthermore co-workers envisioned that Fridfold could decrease the nuisance experienced from interruptions. While three dimensional-texture of the screen could not influence the perceived sound damping due to other characteristics of the screen. Therefore, Fridfold should be evaluated within the context of the office to identify how the design can influence coworkers’ general experience of nuisance.

visual perception
Sound design
open-plan offices
office design
User-centered design
Auditory

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:93630a56-453b-4bf4-9032-77f8576dd145

Student theses

master thesis

© 2020 Thomas Hazenoot