{"id":2868,"date":"2012-05-09T09:13:35","date_gmt":"2012-05-09T13:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/?p=2868"},"modified":"2012-05-09T16:27:49","modified_gmt":"2012-05-09T20:27:49","slug":"study-looks-at-impact-of-waiting-area-design-on-customer-comfort","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2012\/05\/study-looks-at-impact-of-waiting-area-design-on-customer-comfort\/","title":{"rendered":"Study looks at impact of waiting area design on customer comfort"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From the University of Missouri press release:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright\" title=\"waiting at the bar\" src=\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/images\/blogpics\/WineBar.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"360\" height=\"200\" \/>Many diners cringe at the thought of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant, while restaurant managers hope they do not lose customers due to long waits. Now, a University of Missouri researcher has studied restaurant design and has <strong>recommendations for how restaurateurs can design waiting areas to be more comfortable, thus increasing diners\u2019 willingness to wait for a table<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur study shows that <strong>waiting area design has an effect on diners<\/strong>,\u201d said So-Yeon Yoon, associate professor of architectural studies in the College of Human Environmental Sciences. \u201cBy redesigning waiting areas, restaurant owners can make more money, and customers can have a more enjoyable experience.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Yoon provides the following recommendations to increase customer comfort and privacy:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Design waiting areas with outward curving or angled walls, as opposed to open square rooms, so customers cannot see all waiting patrons at once;<\/li>\n<li>Provide several waiting areas for customers, possibly on different sides of the restaurant, etc;<\/li>\n<li>Visually divide the waiting space using plants or decorative elements to give diners more privacy and less sense of crowding.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Yoon conducted the study using a virtual reality environment. Participants were presented with one of two randomly selected types of waiting areas in a virtual restaurant, each with a different level of crowding. Then, they navigated through the virtual environment. Following the experiment, participants self-reported how the different crowding environments made them feel. Yoon found that <strong>participants who could see many waiting patrons felt less comfortable and were more likely to leave than those with fewer patrons waiting in close proximity<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In the future, Yoon plans to continue her research in the recently opened Immersive Visualization Lab (iLab). The MU iLab incorporates three large high-definition projection screens aligned side-by-side to create one continuous, horizontal viewing screen. Wearing special \u201cactive shutter\u201d glasses, students are able to view their computer-generated architectural and interior designs on the screen in 3-D. The immersive effect of the large screen gives students the sensation of standing inside the buildings they are designing.<\/p>\n<p>Yoon\u2019s study was published in the <em>International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management<\/em>. She collaborated with Johye Hwang and Lawrence Bendle of Kyung Hee University.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the University of Missouri press release: Many diners cringe at the thought of waiting for a table in a crowded restaurant, while restaurant managers hope they do not lose&#8230; <a class=\"read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/2012\/05\/study-looks-at-impact-of-waiting-area-design-on-customer-comfort\/\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[96,12],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2868"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2869,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2868\/revisions\/2869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}