Researchers from Brigham Young University conducted a study showing the different ways women go about navigating through university campuses compared to men when walking after dark.
Nearly 600 people took part in the study that included participants looking at photographs from four university campuses. Participants were asked to click areas in the photos that attracted their attention.
The results showed women gave greater attention to potential safety hazards, typically located at the periphery of the images. Men tended to look directly at points along their intended destination.
Why It Matters
Historically, architectural and environmental design are typically done by men. While safety is typically part of the planning process, men are going to have a different set of mostly unconscious assumptions and visual patterns compared to women. It's not as though male architects and environmental design professionals ignore risks women easily see. Rather, the male brain may simply not be wired to recognize those risks due to the different ways men see environmental space.
This research is important to help bring awareness to all architects and environmental design professionals about the importance of seeing the world through the eyes of both women and men when designing and maintaining buildings and grounds where people walk.
Here is the article link summarizing the study: https://phys.org/news/2024-02-visually-captures-hard-truth-home.html
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Stephen Carter is a longtime FREA volunteer and a former chief of police and security professional.