Designing spaces for human interaction: the middle ground between Architecture and UX Design
As human beings, we are constantly interacting with the space surrounding us. Interaction with the environment and communication have been the most powerful tools that allowed us to grow as a structured society.
We have seen that in architecture for millennia, and now we see it more a more clearly with user experience design.
We not only get five senses that allow us to interact with the world in a primal way and sense safety or danger, but we also have full cognition and awareness of the world around us.
We are capable of feeling comfort, we predict possible outcomes of the actions we take, and we are able to appreciate beauty.
And beauty is no more than the interaction we have with elements that are pleasant to our senses. Elements whose components are harmonic to us.
Many design fields (if not all of them) follow principles that lead to a pleasant interaction with the space.
Aristotle calls art any process of creation that obeys rules. ‘The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance’, he wrote.
As an architect, I’ve found many common areas in architectural design and UX design. The way we design digital or tangible spaces impacts on the way we interact with the space and, many items, with other users of that space.
Furthermore, virtual reality and 3D printing are bringing the fields of architecture and UX closer and closer. It won’t be long before we will be interacting with virtual screens and devices in our living room or our office.
In this article, we’ll discuss some of those common design principles in both fields and look at the way this very same principle could apply very differently in both fields.
Spatial Design in Architecture and UX
Every design project is a system. We start with the most general design guidelines for the project and then work down each component and their details.
Both architecture and UX come across this objective: creating a system where users can go from A to Z and everywhere in between, and still enjoy a cohesive, consistent experience.
Yes, you can use cues to help the user understand where are they standing and where to go. But the overall look and feel of the project needs to be decided before creating all the secondary components.
Complex design projects (at least most of them) do not look like an open ground, but more like a maze where all pieces need to fit a certain place. If one moves, everything moves (for better or for worse).
This is why UX designers come up with sitemaps and user journeys before developing each area. Architects use zoning diagrams and sketches way before starting a floor plan.
Furthermore, we organize all the “rooms” or areas from our project the exact same way: we have a main distributor and then each area follows a path. In fact, many of them are interconnected, directly or indirectly.
We can call this Spatial Design, because designers are delimiting a space with indicators. These indicators tell you what the project is, how can you use it to your advantage, and can offer a higher or lower artistic statement as well.
Users Interact With Your Product
Many forms of art and design are unilateral. Humans receive information, but they are not able to directly interact with the product and generate an outcome.
In the case of UX and architecture, users do interact with space. And even if architecture has been around for thousands of years, some components (a wall, a door, a roof) still work or less the same.
And we can say the same about UX design. For example, let’s say we’re designing a reading platform as part of a UX project.
Hundreds and hundreds of previous interactions with digital or analogical reading platforms create a concept in the user’s mind (expected shape, font size, colors, key words…) and, as designers, we simply cannot go against that.
This is why digital newspapers or magazines follow an almost identical visual experience as their printed counterparts. Information is organized the same way: headlines, text and images follow a structure, because it works.
The same goes with books. In fact, many digital platforms replicate the effect of turning pages or using a highlighter.
For both architecture and UX design, whenever we design an item or tool, we already have the expectation that is going to work, even if their presentation is different.
Therefore, not only we have to create a product that is aesthetically pleasant, but that also has coherent components that guide the user and do what the user expects them to do.
Proportion and Scale
Any well-designed product you can see will follow rules of proportion and scale. Even non-visual products such as music need to be harmonic in order to be enjoyable.
Of course, a building and a phone app work on two very different scales. In a building, elements need to be appropriate for you to walk them, sit, or enjoy the view.
In the case of digital spaces, we often interact with them using our fingers, a keyboard or a mouse. As we were mentioning earlier, some elements are taken out of our preconception from analogical items that followed similar functions (e.g., a button, a telephone).
You cannot read text, visit a link or view an image if they are so small or so big that you cannot even understand what they are.
Besides harmony, proportion and scale helps us set hierarchies. This helps users understand which elements are part of a group, what is the most important element in the current space and how they are connected to each other.
Distribution and Tension
Talking about elements and how they are connected to each other, distribution of elements is present in both architecture and UX design.
By defining how elements are ‘related’ to one another, human interaction will follow a certain pattern.
They way we design products will define (in most cases) the steps users will take. In fact, it’s common to develop both factors (user actions and elements distribution) simultaneously.
In order to organize the components of our product, there are many distribution strategies. We can connect different elements with a grid, a pattern, or even randomly (which might follow an artistic intention).
Visual tension between elements will draw the user’s attention to them. They will understand ‘something’ is happening that is different from other elements.
Design is Human-Centered
One of the hardest challenges in both Architecture and UX Design is to both step in and out of the user’s role.
We may not be designing this space for ourselves, yet many times we have to think: If I were the user, how would I proceed?
Research and user observation is so important because of this. A big part of design is to understand what are the most likely decisions that users will take in each point of the process.
Users sometime take the quickest route. Sometimes, they take the route that they are able to identify first as a route, and then go from there, even if there’s an alternative path that is more convenient.
The exact same goes for Architecture. Users can interact with the space in a completely opposite way to what the designer intended to. It doesn’t matter if you add more color, more comfort, more bells and whistles.
We see this in public squares quite often. Even if you’ve designed safe, beautiful corridors, users are likely to take the quickest route, or an alternative path if it’s raining or if the sun is too strong.
“We must design for the way people behave, not for how we would wish them to behave.”
― Donald A. Norman, Living with Complexity
It is challenging to offer something new and put your own identity as a designer without reinventing the wheel.
However, the difference between UX/UI and Architecture is that new data about the users allow digital platforms to update quickly and without too many complications.
Redesigning in architecture demands more resources and takes longer, and you might not even have more available physical space to expand or modify your product.
Conclusion
All design processes, in general, follow a similar path: learning about the problem, learning about the user, learning about the possible solutions, and building the most effective solution.
Good design is also sustainable, efficient, and an artistic creation with a meaning and a purpose.
Architecture and UX Design share many similarities. It’s interesting to think of space as both digital or physical. Even with augmented reality, digital space is starting to look more and more like our new reality.
The ultimate goal in both Architecture Design and UX Design is to offer work that lets the users enjoy a man-made space that is much more than a functional system.
They both have their limitations, but they are ultimately an opportunity to create an experience to their users.
