Environment
We are shaped by, and can shape, our environments
It’s no secret that people are, in part, products of their environment. Environment has been the topic of many twin studies, where the effects of different environments plays a part in how two genetically identical people learn behavioral schemata, or attitudes. It could be the physical aspects of an environment, sounds in someone’s environment, other people in an environment, objects in an environment, that all play a part in what behavioral qualities are learned in people’s lives. Environment plays a role in experience, and over the course of life, we can design environments to support change.
We pay attention to what’s in our environment, and oftentimes things conflict in our environment for our attention. Some psychologists suggest that we have developed a sense for what’s good or bad in our environment, which is the concept of neuroception.
Experience is an interplay of a person, an object, and environmental context
Experience is not rigid, but is an unfolding byproduct of the interaction between a person, a thing, and an environment over time- the common denominator across all experiences. The person is the actor who comes with a set of predispositions that separate themselves from another actor. In some ways this makes two actors experiences different through a combination of environmental context, behavioral patterns, attitudes, among other things. It is through their interaction along with their emotional responses to interactions with things that help shape experiences. Environmental context includes not only where an experience is happening, but the state of the person, the physical space that experience is happening, as well as the feedback from the environment that triggers action.
A well-designed environment teaches those within it to do whatever the environment is designed for, sometimes removing the need for resource-intensive trainings. Understanding differences, connection, and developing new ideas can provide us with tools to make changes to things or to develop new habits.
Environments for change
Some of the best design leaders create environments for people to grow, feel supported, and that facilitate a sense of unity. Unity can create a feeling in people to act in ways that supports their environment- to create shared successes. Creating environments where ideas can mingle freely can help facilitate change. It’s within these environments that designers or researchers can find differences between seemingly similar concepts, or connections between seemingly different ideas. A healthy environment for change strikes a balance with a shared goal, freedom to choose how to get there, unity, and an environment that supports growth. This environment should be collaborative, connected, not competitive. Environment gaps are areas of friction that prevent learning or change from happening. For example, these could be issues stemming from other people in an environment or usability of tools in an environment. Environment gaps are one of many types of gaps that can inhibit change, another being knowledge gaps, but they are also one of the most tangible.
Change can help form new habits
Habits and environment go hand in hand. As a matter of fact, we as human beings have innate habits that allow us to quickly make decisions based on cues in our environment- these are called fixed-action patterns, and they are a boon to many a sales person as a means of forcing compliance. Fixed-action patterns are reflexive responses to features in an environment that ease decision-making. A simple example is that seeing others in our environment doing something will likely lead us to do the same thing- which is the concept of social proof. These signals in the environment can lead us to quickly make decisions, that we might otherwise consume resources making.
Acquired behavior patterns are learned skills that are often supported by something in our environment. We can do things within our environment to support our tasks, such as priming ourselves with information associated with our goals in our environment, or setting time blocks for deep work and focus. For example, in a software company we might become habituated to a daily stand-up to discuss daily events, in which a stand-up itself contains a set of its own behavior patterns. An environment alone is not enough, as building a habit requires a few things including an acquired behavior pattern, like a learned skill, a trigger to start the habit, a motivation to do the habit, and feedback after we have completed the habit to let us know if we have done something right.
Cues can be designed into our environment- for example, a chair for reading, or a room for work, in order to support a habit. Gradually the context of being in a certain environment will become a cue for a future behavior- an acquired behavior. Cues become more prominent the easier they are to notice. An environmental gap might include any type of friction that inhibits a cue. Hiding cues, or associations with a habit, will only make us recognize them less. Making cues in our environment invisible is a great way to remove bad habits. It’s the inverse to making cues obvious to remove an old habit.
We could elaborate on habits for a much longer blog post, but the point is that well designed environments support learning, habit development, and decision-making.
What does this mean for designers?
Crafting the ideal environment for an experience is a common task for designers- whether that experience be learning something, working alongside others, creating something, performing a task, or a combination of all of those things. In a sense, digital software are environments of their own in which people become immersed over time. This enables us as designer to place cues in the system that spark behaviors for people do things that the environment was built for, or, to create new objects that help people do things better. Over time, engagements within these environments can create new behavior patterns or habits all together. This same obviously can be said for physical environments, such as a factory control tower, a pilot’s cockpit, or a movie theater’s box office. Both physical and digital environments can be designed to support learning and use.
As designers we should also be mindful of the impact environments can have on objects. Endurance can be seen as an object’s ability to handle forces that it comes into contact with. If it can handle the environment it is in and provide value over time, then its endurance will improve. In this sense an object should be designed to handle forces in its environment reliably and consistently. To improve something’s longevity we can make it easily repairable, and also resilient to the environment it’s used in.
Designers should consider the impact of an environment on how people do things, and how an environment can both be changed and create change. Some methods for understanding this are contextual inquiries, where researchers navigate environments with users to understand the affects of environmental context on things like task completion. Ultimately it’s our goal to understand how things really happen throughout an experience, not just how we anticipate or want them to happen. Environment is just one of the factors we should pay attention to in this regard.
At the end of the day, we can change environments, which can create change as well.