Pulse: an Interactive Survey Tool

Space Strategies developed Pulse to facilitate client and user feedback in the visioning, planning, design and post occupancy phases of a project. Designed as an interactive survey to remotely engage large groups of stakeholders, Pulse solicits feedback about a place, design concept or finished building using plans, maps and virtual environments.

It is a key planning resource for investigating patterns of use and obtaining feedback at the scale of a building or campus. Pulse is easily customizable, fast to deploy and has a robust dashboard for data analysis. It is uniquely well-suited to post-occupancy evaluations and documenting detailed patterns of use in healthcare and laboratory settings. Recent projects at the University of California at Berkeley, Tulane University and the Pennsylvania State University utilized results from Pulse to inform planning and design decisions.

Understanding Existing Spaces
Space Strategies online Pulse survey platform allows us to inform planning, programming, and design decisions based on a broad base of user feedback. Respondents drag and drop icons onto maps, floor plans and digital models to comment, rate, or draw paths of travel creating a rich, highly visual dataset that informs PAYETTE’s planning, programming, and design processes. The survey is easily customizable and fast to deploy. Pulse enables us to communicate ideas and pose questions about design in an immersive, virtual environment.

Eliciting Stakeholder Feedback During Design
Planning projects often rely on input from a broad, diverse range of stakeholders. Pulse enables us to target questions to many audiences about their space. Responses are mapped and can be compared to answer questions such as where do faculty collaborate and is food nearby? Do hospital corridors support a clear division of on-stage and off-stage circulation? Where is the heart of campus and who goes there? What suggestions and ideas do people have? This kind of feedback is both quantitative and qualitative, which makes it useful to designers seeking to deeply understand a place and to leadership who rely on clear, transparent processes and outcomes.

Virtual Mock-ups and Detailed Design Review
We design for functionality as much as aesthetics. Nurses, physicians, faculty and researchers benefit from an immersive design process that tests room layout and functionality through a virtual survey experience. PAYETTE deploys Pulse during design to collect feedback on virtual mock-ups – we can gather detailed user feedback on everything from teaching and research labs to patient rooms. Refinement continues even after projects are built.

Post Occupancy Surveys
We translate lessons learned in post-occupancy surveys to future projects. How can buildings enhance research culture, improve the patient experience or transform the student experience? Pulse opens a dialog with our clients, allowing us to map movement, pathways and use in ways traditional surveys cannot, which aids our analysis as our team assists clients to make the key decisions for their campuses and buildings.