Antonio Cobaleda Cordero´s research focus on the experiences of users with flexible offices because to understand the influences that the design qualities of office artefacts and spaces have on such experiences, as well as their design implications. The research angle adopted builds on a UX theoretical background and a practical approach with multiple user studies in real office environments.
The findings show that user experiences with flexible offices are influenced by interrelated design qualities of the spaces and artefacts in use, rather than isolated qualities. These (tangible and intangible) qualities define the nature of an artefact, a space, or constellations of them that users experience, for instance the qualities of an office chair vs. a meeting room. Experiences are subjective, but relate to both individual and collective experiences, for example using an ergonomic workstation vs. sharing such workstations. The findings also suggest that designing for user experiences with flexible offices is a highly complex endeavour, and that emphasis should be placed on designing for the experiences of pleasure, community, autonomy, purpose, and control over the environment.
Utilising this knowledge to develop and test research prototypes allowed for a richer understanding of the experiential process and its relation to more systemic aspects such as the context of use or the temporality of experiences. The tentative SEEX (Stimuli-Evaluation-EXperiential outcome) model of how user experiences take place is presented in the thesis. This thesis contributes knowledge on theoretical and practical levels for academics and practitioners to continue studying office user experiences from a UX perspective, support informed decisions in the planning, operation, and evaluation of offices, and explore design opportunities for office environments.
The PhD can be accessed from this link https://research.chalmers.se/publication/530409
