Abstract

As individual needs are emphasized and the influence of the artificial environment grows, the importance of customized design guidelines that are considerate of users when creating the environment has been highlighted. In particular, in the era of long-life, where the proportion of environmentally sensitive elderly increases rapidly, the convergence knowledge base for understanding the elderly-friendly guidelines needs to be expanded. The purpose of this study is to expand the basis of behavioral science knowledge that helps to understand the guidelines for aging-friendly bathroom design. To this end, Murtha & Lee’s User Benefit Criteria theory was used, and the guidelines were aimed at the contents of the bathroom in the recently developed guidelines for aging-friendly housing. As a research method, a content analysis technique was used. A total of 111 guideline items were analyzed according to 21 user benefit dimensions. Among the aging-friendly bathroom design guidelines, a total of 57 guidelines supporting ‘Behavioral Facilitation’ and 48 guidelines supporting ‘Physiological Maintenance’, accounting for 95% of the total. In the former case, ‘Functional Conformance’, ‘Operational Conformance’, and ‘Spatial Conformance’ accounted for about 93%, and in the latter case, ‘Hazard Regulation’ and ‘Support Conformance’ accounted for about 69%. This is the core purposes and expected effects shown in the existing guidelines, and it is clear that it is an important wisdom to design well. In addition, due to the relationship between guideline items and user benefits, it was provided as a framework for a comprehensive understanding of how profiles should be approached to prevent accidents in the bathroom and improve the quality of life of the elderly. In conclusion, behavioral science knowledge of the background and objectives of the creation of guidelines created to specifically present bathroom plans, and the evaluation of usability has been extended and systematically presented.

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