I lived in a one-room (plus bathroom) apartment for half a year. It was an awful experience. The apartment was very well designed with nice furniture and very very centric. But it felt claustrophobic.
I have lived since then in similar apartments, equally small, but with at least 2 rooms (living room and bedroom). It feels so much better.
At first, one-room looks like is going to be better. There is more space as you don't have inner walls. But when you play games, watch tv, cook and sleep all in the same room it feels that there is something wrong.
Getting up in the morning, leaving the bedroom and going to the living room makes a big difference. The context-switching is welcome. It is also easier when going to sleep.
A friend of mine had a generalized anxiety disorder, and for a while she was living in an apartment which had a large living room / kitchen which connected all other rooms. Basically, you entered directly into a large room, some part of which was used for cooking, another for playing games and watching tv, other again for dining and some part was just a transfer zone between the rooms and the lavatory.
She reported feeling uneasy when entering her apartment, as the potential for action was too large, and she couldn't concentrate on the one task she had in front of her - the task of arriving at home.
I guess it is connected to the concept of 'affordance' that is used in psychology and UX design. In the view of Gibson it is more about relations to the environment whereas Norman appropriated it to mean the perceived possible actions that are offered by objects, and as such are object properties. In both senses, the affordance of the space was too rich and uneven, and offered too many possible uses for the room.
My feeling is that we are having this problem more and more with generalized soft- and hardware. As browsers and phones offer ever expanding possibilities for action, they become more and more faceless and bland. My hope is that we will embrace limited affordances as a force for good, creating highly opinionated, characteristic and specialized products that offer precise ways of using them.
I lived in this kind of studio apartment for 2 years and didn't have any of the issues you describe. There was a discussion recently about airplanes with no windows and I felt similarly. I just don't really get anxiety about enclosed spaces.
Coincidentally, I work remotely from my home and I think that this contributes to why I like it. A lot of people have trouble working and relaxing in the same space. But I don't have an issue with it.
Not sure what all that adds to the conversation. Maybe I'm the weird one, and this is a normal feeling. But I just wanted to say this is not a universal thing necessarily.
Lots of people around the world live in 1 room apartments. Tokyo and HK are full of them. I have friends that grew up in 1 room apartments, parents and all.
There's also that eco movement for tiny multipurpose 1 room housing.
Not saying I don't prefer more rooms but I certainly wouldn't go as far as saying something is wrong with 1 room.
I live in a small corner studio in the densest area of Seoul. Everything is close (piano, bed, PS4, kitchen, wardrobe, small table, bathroom), the view is nice and it still feels spacious and relaxed. I don't own too many things and actively try to reduce cleaning surface and remove anything that is even a tiny non-necessary maintenance burden. Keeping the house spotless is super easy. No anxiety due to visual complexity or owning too much. Loving it.
The two problems I saw were getting it dark enough to sleep (wasn't hard but was a bit of a chore, automated blinds would have helped) and noise from the refrigerator, but that's pretty much it.
I had both at university - a single room for two years, then a two-room set for a year - and found they had different strengths. In the single room, I could go to my bed for a break, or to fetch something from over there, without completely losing my focus. In the set, it was nice to have a separate room for sleeping and keeping clothes (so I didn't have to worry about keeping them out of the way - they aren't taking up space in my work area). Ultimately though, I didn't find them to be fundamentally different, other than literally having more space in the two-room set.
Worth noting that I didn't cook in either - there was a separate (shared) kitchen, though most of the time I would be eating in Hall anyway, which may have been a factor.
I lived in basically a one room (there were no walls) but the bed room was a corridor away from the living/kitchen area apartment. I made sure to create seperate zones where I did things, although I would often violate the point of these zones (i.e. work on my couch watching TV, rather than at my desk. I feel as long as you keep the areas mentally separately, even if you can't physically seperate the areas you should be okay.
On the contrary... I feel a much closer connection to my current 1BR apt than I felt to a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 3 story townhouse. It’s small enough that I can remember exactly where I keep shit(Smaller RAM). It’s less space to vacuum so I do that often.
For me, it is "new browser tab" effect these days. I will often be reading a website, then think "Oh, I must research this thing they are talking about" or else I will remember some other thing that I have to do online, so I will open a new browser window in the background.
But then I will get distracted by something else on the current web page - for even a few seconds - and when I go to the new tab to do what I had planned to do, I sit there in complete blank befuddlement, staring at the empty page and wondering what on earth I was supposed to look up.
Especially with the "top sites" or "highlights" feature of contemporary browsers, that in essence show different doors, invite into other worlds as soon as you open a new tab. So instead of going where you wanted to go you get disoriented by all the offerings.
Can't not link to my blog post Open tabs are cognitive spaces [0] that deals with the browser as the place you externalize your cognition to.
I'm sorry, but we live in an age where decades old famous social sciences experiments are proved to be frauds.
I have stopped giving any credit to the various "scientific study proves X does/is Y in psychology/social sciences/diet". Every day we have a new "eating red cookies in the morning" makes you "less likely to lie" study.
I personally think that people unconsciouslly hated the start menu of Windows 8 because of this phenomenom. You open it and the whole screen changes. Worst possible UI.
The problem -- if it is one -- is certainly not limited to the Win 8 Start menu. There are plenty of interfaces where pressing a button, or some similar action, pops up a new full-screen or nearly full-screen UI element that looks & works differently from what was there before.
I wonder whether any research has been done on whether this makes any significant number of users forget what they were doing. If not, I think such research would be worthwhile.
As someone who just started using windows for the first time, doesn’t the little search box essentially replace the start menu? How are people expected to find their app—manually clicking through a bunch of menus to one they are looking for? Assuming they have NOT pinned it to the dock at the bottom.
They recently screwed up the task switcher UI. Iff you turn off all the Timeline stuff, half of the UI is long wordy text about turning back on the Timeline. Every time you Win-tab.
Call it ADHD or what you want, but I tend to experience this a bit more than most people I know. Applying to tech, it's the number one reason Windows 8 didn't work for me. The loss of context when the start screen took over was too disorienting.
I started using a tiling window manager in Linux back around 2012 and I won't ever go back. Overlapping windows were a terrible UI decision. I remember having very early Windows for DOS back on my 286 and remember that those releases didn't have overlapping windows either. Each new running app just split the screen.
Working with a couple coworkers is pretty frustrating because their window management strategy is switching rapidly between active OSX screens with the whole wipe animation too.
Ever since I learnt about this, I have made a practice of saying what I'm doing out loud as I leave one room and enter another one to do the thing I want to do. So I have that moment of "I walked through a door and flushed my brain's to-do cache", but it's quickly remedied by the fact that I loaded up a few words describing what I want to do the instant before I stepped through the door into the longer pipeline of brain-to-mouth.
I'm not sure about this article. For as bad as my memory has always been (and especially bad for being a programmer), I don't have many "why am I in here" moments.
It does happen occasionally, but as someone who is thinking about "work-on-the-fly" wherever I am, I think I'm just accustomed to noodling over work (or other background processes) "in the background".
Since lots of us are engineer-types, are we more apt at that background processing and then when we hit our primary target (in here to look for keys), we're able to shit into primary focus mode?
Now if I'm searching for keys, noodling over some design in the background, and then my wife pops me with a question while I'm lumbering through the house, then I'm in trouble;)
It's context switching, I face this daily due to my OCD. The damn doorways are always a problem.
I'm not very well versed on this subject, but have there been any experiments conducted with a doorway in the middle of a basketball court or a field?
I'm sure that would mess me up for a good couple of minutes as well. It's not just doorways that lead to a different room, it's just the fact that there's a doorway present, that changes my context of things.
I'm picturing basketball with a slightly larger court, a canvas wall suspended down the center strapped down around three doorways evenly spaced from the edges, six players per team on the court, and maybe some round padded platforms centered behind the free-throw lines for extra terrain strategy. There'd be some kind of rule similar to dribbling to prevent standing in doorways; something like, you can only stop or take more than two steps in a doorway zone if you've got the ball.
Gates on large fences might work for this too then. Be a good middle ground for testing. A larger chain link fence with a gate so you can still see both sides
And yet we design open-plan offices around the central theme that people working in a concentration-demanding field should orient their every moment of work around the assumption that not only are context switches costless, but that “collaboration” only happens if everyone is constantly preemptible according to the capricious judgment of managers and other colleagues who are not in a position to even judge the importance of the current task the person being interrupted is working on.
Doors trigger our minds loading screens. Memory is loaded from disk. Old context is ejected new is injected. The ego or “i” concept is allotted small attention/memory to carry over stuff. If attention is lost in the middle, the background swap can happen subconscioslu and something you thought you placed nearby can be moved.
I think this effect happens of the many distractions in life.
Whenever I open a new tab it shows a list of the most popular search trends. I forget what I was supposed to search because fomo.
To combat this I have a to do list app where I conveniently list all distractions and forget about them. It's easy too because I know I have that saved for later.
[+] [-] kartan|7 years ago|reply
I have lived since then in similar apartments, equally small, but with at least 2 rooms (living room and bedroom). It feels so much better.
At first, one-room looks like is going to be better. There is more space as you don't have inner walls. But when you play games, watch tv, cook and sleep all in the same room it feels that there is something wrong.
Getting up in the morning, leaving the bedroom and going to the living room makes a big difference. The context-switching is welcome. It is also easier when going to sleep.
[+] [-] spython|7 years ago|reply
I guess it is connected to the concept of 'affordance' that is used in psychology and UX design. In the view of Gibson it is more about relations to the environment whereas Norman appropriated it to mean the perceived possible actions that are offered by objects, and as such are object properties. In both senses, the affordance of the space was too rich and uneven, and offered too many possible uses for the room.
My feeling is that we are having this problem more and more with generalized soft- and hardware. As browsers and phones offer ever expanding possibilities for action, they become more and more faceless and bland. My hope is that we will embrace limited affordances as a force for good, creating highly opinionated, characteristic and specialized products that offer precise ways of using them.
[+] [-] neuland|7 years ago|reply
Coincidentally, I work remotely from my home and I think that this contributes to why I like it. A lot of people have trouble working and relaxing in the same space. But I don't have an issue with it.
Not sure what all that adds to the conversation. Maybe I'm the weird one, and this is a normal feeling. But I just wanted to say this is not a universal thing necessarily.
[+] [-] greggman|7 years ago|reply
There's also that eco movement for tiny multipurpose 1 room housing.
Not saying I don't prefer more rooms but I certainly wouldn't go as far as saying something is wrong with 1 room.
[+] [-] crehn|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tjoff|7 years ago|reply
The two problems I saw were getting it dark enough to sleep (wasn't hard but was a bit of a chore, automated blinds would have helped) and noise from the refrigerator, but that's pretty much it.
[+] [-] felipemnoa|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stordoff|7 years ago|reply
Worth noting that I didn't cook in either - there was a separate (shared) kitchen, though most of the time I would be eating in Hall anyway, which may have been a factor.
[+] [-] Khaine|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pm90|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cyberferret|7 years ago|reply
But then I will get distracted by something else on the current web page - for even a few seconds - and when I go to the new tab to do what I had planned to do, I sit there in complete blank befuddlement, staring at the empty page and wondering what on earth I was supposed to look up.
[+] [-] spython|7 years ago|reply
Can't not link to my blog post Open tabs are cognitive spaces [0] that deals with the browser as the place you externalize your cognition to.
[0] https://rybakov.com/blog/open_tabs_are_cognitive_spaces/
[+] [-] dopkew|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] donttrack|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 21|7 years ago|reply
I'm sorry, but we live in an age where decades old famous social sciences experiments are proved to be frauds.
I have stopped giving any credit to the various "scientific study proves X does/is Y in psychology/social sciences/diet". Every day we have a new "eating red cookies in the morning" makes you "less likely to lie" study.
[+] [-] tniemi|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ggchappell|7 years ago|reply
The problem -- if it is one -- is certainly not limited to the Win 8 Start menu. There are plenty of interfaces where pressing a button, or some similar action, pops up a new full-screen or nearly full-screen UI element that looks & works differently from what was there before.
I wonder whether any research has been done on whether this makes any significant number of users forget what they were doing. If not, I think such research would be worthwhile.
[+] [-] stordoff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] drb91|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cma|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AckSyn|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] npunt|7 years ago|reply
With phones its worse because all the pretty icons confuse and beckon you to fall back on opening whatever app you habitually open when bored.
This property of our cognition is why we should better scaffold intentionality into our devices, though that is an difficult design challenge.
[+] [-] sundvor|7 years ago|reply
On particularly bad days, a couple of cycles have been needed...
[+] [-] meko|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] cjcampbell|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djsumdog|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ThrustVectoring|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] egypturnash|7 years ago|reply
It helps me, at least.
[+] [-] Bizarro|7 years ago|reply
It does happen occasionally, but as someone who is thinking about "work-on-the-fly" wherever I am, I think I'm just accustomed to noodling over work (or other background processes) "in the background".
Since lots of us are engineer-types, are we more apt at that background processing and then when we hit our primary target (in here to look for keys), we're able to shit into primary focus mode?
Now if I'm searching for keys, noodling over some design in the background, and then my wife pops me with a question while I'm lumbering through the house, then I'm in trouble;)
[+] [-] tejtm|7 years ago|reply
It is also why I prefer the NASA mission control approach to monitor layout
[+] [-] reallymental|7 years ago|reply
I'm not very well versed on this subject, but have there been any experiments conducted with a doorway in the middle of a basketball court or a field?
I'm sure that would mess me up for a good couple of minutes as well. It's not just doorways that lead to a different room, it's just the fact that there's a doorway present, that changes my context of things.
Maybe I'm the weird one.
[+] [-] WiseWeasel|7 years ago|reply
I'm picturing basketball with a slightly larger court, a canvas wall suspended down the center strapped down around three doorways evenly spaced from the edges, six players per team on the court, and maybe some round padded platforms centered behind the free-throw lines for extra terrain strategy. There'd be some kind of rule similar to dribbling to prevent standing in doorways; something like, you can only stop or take more than two steps in a doorway zone if you've got the ball.
[+] [-] simcop2387|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stordoff|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] UncleEntity|7 years ago|reply
Kind of annoying TBH...
[+] [-] okket|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mlthoughts2018|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eeZah7Ux|7 years ago|reply
The connection is still quite present in humans.
There are many examples: going for a walk clears your mind more than being indoors. Smells and flavors reconnect to places & so on...
[+] [-] owaislone|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hapnin|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] moogly|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sxv|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] k__|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] allthenews|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dlwdlw|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gymshoes|7 years ago|reply
Whenever I open a new tab it shows a list of the most popular search trends. I forget what I was supposed to search because fomo.
To combat this I have a to do list app where I conveniently list all distractions and forget about them. It's easy too because I know I have that saved for later.
[+] [-] fredley|7 years ago|reply
http://tmoliff.blogspot.com/2012/06/woking-participial-vb.ht...
[+] [-] barcoder|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hangtwenty|7 years ago|reply