Practices, Challenges, and Suggestions in Predicting User Experience during the Programming Phase of Construction Projects

Although building less space contributes to sustainable design and construction, having less space without a clear rationale can impair user experience (UX) after a facility is built. However, our triangulated case studies show that the current assessment of UX is qualitative and intuition-based, which is not adequate in predicting the UX for decision-making about a space program (SP). We argue that an activity-based assessment tool can help planners better predict the impact of an SP on the UX in a quantitative, model-based, and detailed manner. We propose three research tasks required to develop the tool: (1) formalizing the relationship between the user activities and the UX, (2) measuring the predictors which impact the UX given the information basis planners have, and (3) validating the tool by a structured experiment. This research can contribute to sustainable design and construction by providing a clear rationale for making decisions about an SP during the programming phase.