Towards a Design Procedure Based on Peoples' Responses to Indoor Lighting

On the basis that an effective lighting design procedure should enable practitioners to reliably achieve positive responses from the people who will experience the lighting, the effectiveness of current practice is found lacking in that it is largely unrelated to peoples' responses. Additionally, the calculation procedures widely used for devising indoor lighting solutions require the user to propose a solution and for the procedure to determine its performance. It is argued that a truly effective procedure would require the practitioner to describe lighting design objectives for the application, and for the procedure to derive the performance specification of a lighting scheme that would achieve the objectives. Evidence of changing attitudes among lighting professionals is identified, which together with recent research findings, has led to a proposal for reassessment of the purpose for which indoor lighting is provided based on peoples' responses. The Lighting Design Objectives (LiDOs) Procedure is gaining use among professional lighting designers and is used to illustrate practical application of this notion. The implications of such a procedure becoming generally adopted for indoor lighting practice are discussed.