Downloads and Resources

Compelling Branded Environments in Higher Education

The world of higher education faces many challenges. Ever-increasing tuition is prompting students and their families to take a close look at the value being offered by the schools being considered. Rising costs are compelling many students to consider alternatives to the traditional four-year university, including competitors that offer online education. Even in traditional institutions, emerging technologies and the […]

Active Ergonomics

The goal of today’s office ergonomics is focused on fitting the workspace and technology to the individual. However, the very nature of work is changing. Technology has freed people to work anywhere, and a growing proportion of that work is collaborative and social. But traditional office ergonomics does not address group work or spaces. These emerging space types […]

Why Daylight and Views Matter

As the movie title “A Room with a View” suggests, people seem inherently drawn to an interesting view—natural or otherwise. In fact, they’ll even pay significantly more for it. In an office setting, the word “view” not only refers to what users see outside the office windows, but also to a user’s perception of an […]

The Myth of Multi-Tasking

Task sharing or multi-tasking—switching from focused to unfocused tasks and back—takes time. According to research, it takes approximately 15-20 minutes to recover from every interruption. Download the whitepaper

Office Etiquette 101

Not so long ago, offices were places where legions of similarly dressed people all arrived at the same time to sit aligned in neat rows and perform nearly identical tasks. At lunchtime, they vacated the workspace for an hour to come back refreshed and ready for an afternoon of highly predictable behavior. It was boring […]

Alternative Workplace Strategies in the Current Economy

Leading organizations have been employing alternative workplace practices (AW) for over two decades—as far back as 1989 when IBM began piloting AW options—and long before the word “Internet” became part of the common lexicon. But for many years they were mainly the practices of a select few companies. They remained mostly experimental and retained their […]

Designing Across Generations

Can Gen-Y multi-task better than other generations? Today’s workplaces are comprised of members of Generation Y, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and Traditionalists. (Crocker, 2007; Cowell, 2009) Of course, people of multiple generations have always worked together. But unlike past generations—such as the farming families of the Dark Ages—the current workforce’s older and younger members’ life […]

Are Gen-Y’s Brains “Modular” or “Unconscious”?

Many people assume that younger workers can process information in fundamentally different ways than their older counterparts. This paper reviews research relevant to that assumption and explores the association between office design and communication styles. Download the whitepaper