Textbook of Usability

b. 1946, USA · Founder of the field of evidence-based healthcare design

Also known as: Roger S. Ulrich

Roger S. Ulrich is the most-cited researcher in healthcare design. His 1984 paper View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery, published in Science, compared cholecystectomy patients whose hospital rooms looked out onto trees with otherwise-matched patients whose rooms faced a brick wall. The tree-view group needed shorter postoperative stays, fewer strong analgesics, and received fewer negative comments from nurses.

The paper made the empirical case for biophilic design in hospitals, and seeded the Theory of Supportive Design that has since shaped the design of cancer centres, paediatric units and psychiatric hospitals worldwide. Ulrich's later research on stress recovery in natural environments, on lighting and noise, and on family-centred design has continued to provide the evidence base for what designers had previously argued on aesthetic grounds alone.