"Users Are the Experts on Themselves": How People Shape the Spaces They Use

"The global integrated design firm DLR Group places these questions at the center of its practice. Working across educational, civic, healthcare, and workplace environments, the firm emphasizes research-informed, human-centered design that treats lived experience as a form of design intelligence. In a recent conversation with ArchDaily, Global Design Leader Tim Ganey, Global Leader of Equity, Diversity, and Belonging Jessica Bantom, and Interior Designer Sammy Rupp describe how working directly with users helps define challenges before solutions are proposed."

"What unites them is not a single methodology, but a shared goal: prioritizing the needs, experiences, and constraints of the people who will ultimately use a space, and allowing these realities to guide decisions. As Ganey explains, this work begins by reframing how problems are defined: It's about defining what users are looking for and inviting them to create with us [...]. Users are the experts on themselves, and the design process starts with a conversation involving everyone."

Environmental conditions such as light, sound, surface texture, and circulation patterns directly affect occupant focus, calm, creativity, and stress. These conditions often become apparent only after spaces are occupied. DLR Group centers research-informed, human-centered approaches across educational, civic, healthcare, and workplace projects. The firm treats lived experience as a form of design intelligence and engages users directly to define challenges before proposing solutions. User-centered methods include observation, research, dialogue, testing, and simulation, each chosen for specific contexts. The primary goal is to prioritize users' needs, experiences, and constraints so those realities guide design decisions.

Read at ArchDaily