Why is Building User Experience Important?

What is Building User Experience and Why is it Important?

Do you want happy, productive and efficient workers?

Of course you do! All businesses do. At the end of the day, happy workers make the world go round. But how do you make them happy and ensure they stay happy?

Sure you could offer more vacation time or give out raises. However, this is an expensive way to go about this. There is another major factor to consider in making workers happy which has quite often been overlooked in the past, and that is – focusing on the building user experience.

What is Building User Experience?

The term ‘User Experience (UX)’ is often referred to in virtual technology spaces, but what about the significance of users experience in a physical space?

The building user experience refers to how a person interacts with their physical environment and considers factors such as amenity, easy of use, and efficiency. Positively connecting with the space in which we work all day, can have a wonderful influence on our mood while also alleviating the efforts to complete general tasks. These combined results stimulate increased productivity and the speed and accuracy in which work is accomplished.

According to research published by Gensler, “A better working environment would increase employee productivity by 19%, and four out of five professional states that the quality of their working environment is very important to their sense of job satisfaction”.

Why is the building user experience important?

The goal of optimised building user experience is to helping people go about their day with more ease and consideration into how certain actions impact day-to-day activities and how they make them feel. There is no right or wrong with the experience as building user experience is context-dependent, and subjective, the individual user experience is predominantly composed of individual feelings and influenced by the environment in which they are situated.

As we know, each workplace has its locational context and requirements to be considered, such as different types of organisations or professions, regional culture, and surrounding areas. Each unique user presents subjective perceptions and responses in regards to different work environments. Hence, we carefully analyse existing processes and requirements to identify opportunities for efficiencies. Whilst working closely with our clients to determine high-quality, reliable, and bespoke solutions that deliver on user needs.

“User Experience can be viewed as an elaboration of satisfaction component of usability” (Bevan, 2009). The notion of usability has different aspects, such as efficiency, feasibility, and satisfaction. Satisfaction indicates feelings such as joy, trust, and fulfilment. User Experience is an expansion of usability with emotional attributes to any environment or product. Thereby, focusing on the user journey, we will not only support the organisation to retain top talents but also improve on staff productivity, corporate agility, and the entire business performance.

Enhancing the building user experience

Creating an expectational and seamless user experience requires both tangible and intangible components to render a holistic experience for all users in the building.

At Operational Intelligence, we go beyond looking at immediate solutions for financial needs. Our differentiator lies in our ability to deliver smart buildings, offices, and spaces based on user experience.

We care about people’s lives; we want to improve work productivity as well as maintaining the health & wellbeing of your employees or consumers through engaging spaces. Our suite of solutions focuses on integration between people, processes and technology to enhance the entire workplace experience.

Introducing the key character in this OI user journey, Sarah, an employee working in one of the organisations that lease space in the building. Let’s walk through Sarah’s workday journey together and see how Operational Intelligence design and delivered the experience. 

Reference

Gensler. (2005). These four walls: the real British office. These Four Walls: The Real British Office, 1. https://www.gensler.com/research-insight/gensler-research-institute/the-2005-uk-workplace-survey

Haynes, B. P. (2007). An evaluation of office productivity measurement. Journal of Corporate Real Estate, 9(3), 144–155. https://doi.org/10.1108/14630010710845730

Haynes, B. P. (2008). The impact of office layout on productivity. Journal of Facilities Management, 6(3), 189–201. https://doi.org/10.1108/14725960810885961

Zarour, M., & Alharbi, M. (2017). User experience framework that combines aspects, dimensions, and measurement methods. Cogent Engineering, 4(1), 1421006. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311916.2017.1421006

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