Comprehension of Layout Complexity: effects of architectural expertise and mode of presentation

Christoph Hoelscher, Ruth Dalton

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

This paper presents an experiment on judgments of design complexity, based on two modes of stimuli: the layouts of corridor systems in buildings shown in plan view and movies of simulated walkthroughs. Randomly selected stimuli were pre-sented to 166 subjects: 'experts' (architects or students currently enrolled on an architectural course) and 'lay people' (all others). The aims were to investigate whether there were differences between these two groups in terms of their judgments of building complexity, effects of modality of stimuli and if any environ-mental measures (geometric or complexity-based) correlated with the assessments. The results indicate that indeed complexity and wayfinding ratings show distinct patterns. Architects are more sensitive to differences between complexity and wayfinding ratings in the plan views, while lay-people provided more distinctive ratings for movies. Similarly, lay-people judged the same materials to be simpler and easier when seen as ego-centric movies, with architects showing the opposite pattern. The judgments of both groups correlated highly with a number of envi-ronmental measures, with architects providing greater differentiation regarding layout symmetry.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDesign Computing and Cognition '08: Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition
Place of PublicationLondon
PublisherSpringer
Pages159-178
Volume2
ISBN (Print)978-1-4020-8727-1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2008
EventThird International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'08) -
Duration: 1 Jan 2008 → …

Conference

ConferenceThird International Conference on Design Computing and Cognition (DCC'08)
Period1/01/08 → …

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