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From a Workspace to a Mindspace: The Research behind Hum.
Three years of research and development led to the product design innovations that make up Hum.
The following is a brief summary of the overall project. For complete details, please go to
www.humoffice.com.
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Kimball Office developed Hum in partnership with Formway Design. The design team interviewed office workers in different businesses to find out what helped and what frustrated them about their furniture. They also observed how
workers used, naturally responded to and adapted the space around them in order to match their very individual ways of working. And finally, the team consulted with experts in psychology, cognitive and physical ergonomics, and other social sciences that deal with issues of interaction, attentiveness and cognition to help them understand how we as humans perceive and think, what distracts us, what helps us focus, how we share information and ideas, and how we work together.
The team discovered that for most people, no matter what their profession, a day’s work is a continuum between individual focus and collaborative team tasks. They then set about creating a workspace that would:
Provide a clear definition of personal spaces.
Mimic the way the mind organizes and prioritizes information.
Create three levels of individual organization.
Allow for flexibility in the way people organize work.
Create space for personal display and shared display.
Ensure clear sightlines to make signals visible.
Create proximity for those who work together most often.
Allow for seamless movement between work modes.
The team constructed a ‘living lab’ where they could make fast prototypes and test them to refine their thinking. The living lab created a constant cycle of concept generation, rough prototyping, and evaluation, so the whole design team experienced firsthand the idea from a user’s point of view. They also invited industry experts to review their work throughout the design development stage. Many prototypes were built. Some worked. Some failed. All contributed to the final design known today as Hum. Minds at Work.
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