User-Centric Design Approaches: Understanding Preferences for Indoor Environmental Quality in Educational Spaces

Indoor environmental quality (IEQ) within buildings significantly affects occupants’ health, well-being, satisfaction, and productivity. Understanding how spaces can be designed to meet individuals’ needs is crucial. This study conducted three surveys to explore the relationship between comfort parameters and occupants’ perceptions and preferences of space. The questionnaires aimed to investigate this correlation and extract insights into how environmental conditions shape seating arrangements. The research seeks to provide a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics between daylight exposure, thermal comfort, external views, visual privacy, and seating choices in a shared study space. This study seeks to contribute to the existing literature with meaningful findings that can inform architectural and design considerations, on behavioral variations. In total 384 students were surveyed. Results from the surveys underscored the importance of thermal and daylight parameters within indoor environmental conditions, as they strongly impact students’ efficiency and productivity. Other results revealed how visual comfort preferences and neutrality assessment could vary from the standardized prescription depending on daylight availability. Illuminance values from ½ to 3 times more than the standard requirement (500 lx) were considered acceptable. At last, the answers demonstrated that under homogeneous thermal and visual comfort conditions, participants favored seats less visually exposed. Throughout all the surveys, outdoor view was consistently the least influential parameter in seat selection. The findings suggest the potentiality for design approaches implementing user feedback to align with students’ preferences for enhanced comfort in educational environments.