Designing for Focus Work

AIA Course #: HAW 591, HSW
IDCEC Course #: CEU-106448, HSW
Subject Code: 3. Interior Design Education/ 1. Instruction

Course Description

While people are the number one asset of organizations directly contributing to the bottom line, their performance is often hindered by poorly designed workplaces where distractions abound, and collaboration is emphasized over focus work. We will embark on a journey to briefly explore the “anatomy” of focus work with interesting factoids regarding attention, distraction, “flow” and situational awareness, also addressing the myth of multitasking. We will discuss why focus work is important, even for collaboration, and how designers should take a holistic approach with five key design elements to address both, creating high-performance workplaces where people can thrive.

Course Objectives

  • Discover how the physical workplace can influence, hinder or enhance human performance.
  • Explore facts regarding human cognition, and how individual concentration or focus works.
  • Understand why focus work is important for collaboration and why it is good business to design for both.
  • Apply five key design elements to create high-performance workplaces where people can thrive.

Course Outline

  1. Why collaboration earned its place as key to innovation?
  2. Define focus work; and discuss who needs focus work time.
  3. Explanation of the anatomy of focus work.
  4. How to achieve focus work.
  5. Five themes for designing for focus.
  6. Questions & Answers.