Insights

What can designing lighting to support people with neurodiversity teach us about our general design practices?

As a person who designs the lighting within spaces that people live, work, learn, and relax in, I am somewhat embarrassed to acknowledge that until recently I knew very little about the lighting needs of people who are neurodivergent.

I knew the basics about overstimulation, distraction, avoiding strong contrast, glare, etc, but nothing concrete and very little that hits our design processes to make a substantive change. Recently I have taken a much keener interest and there are some interesting findings that may help our wider design processes if we were to follow them.

For example, guidance for daylighting in schools (Designing schools for autistic pupils) suggests reducing views out of windows as they may be overstimulating, whilst thinking in the health and wellbeing sphere encourages views out of windows as they provide a connection to the outdoors and a useful distraction from screens.

But equally, under stimulation may be an issue for some people so a range of spaces, moods and lighting environments is preferred – or the ability to change the lighting environment to suit.

And whilst neurotypical people make up the majority, the 15% figure may not consider the vast range of human types that make up our population. There is no distinct line between a typical brain and an atypical brain when it comes to how we perceive space.

To me this shows what a rich tapestry of types we are and how we generalise far too much in our design discussions.

In part 2, I will be discussing the three lessons which can be used when designing for neurodiversity.