Rethinking the GP Waiting Room: A Human-Centred Design Case Study
A conceptual exploration of how human-centred design could transform an everyday healthcare waiting environment.
We probably don’t give much thought to the humble GP waiting room.
We arrive, check in, find somewhere to sit and wait.
But what does that experience actually feel like?
For some people, waiting in a healthcare environment can be uncomfortable, stressful or overwhelming. There may be noise, bright lighting, unfamiliar surroundings, conversations happening nearby, a lack of privacy or uncertainty about how long the wait will be. Sometimes, it may simply be that there are too many things happening at once.
And that’s what prompted this design study.
What if we stopped thinking about the GP waiting room simply as a functional space for people to sit, and started thinking about it as an environment that people actually experience?
This isn’t a finished interior design
Before getting into the design itself, there’s something important I want to establish.
This is a concept study.
It isn’t a proposed architectural scheme, a specification for a real GP surgery or a fully resolved healthcare interior. The layout is intentionally rough and conceptual.
In fact, the starting point for this particular study was my own GP surgery. I’ve loosely based the spatial arrangement on its main entrance, reception and waiting area — not as an exact representation, but as a familiar starting point from which to explore what could happen if the same type of environment were reconsidered through a human-centred lens.
The purpose of these projects is to explore ideas.
I’m interested in what happens when I take an everyday environment and start looking at it through different design philosophies. What changes when I consider sensory experience? What changes when I consider anxiety? What happens when I introduce trauma-informed thinking? What happens when I consider neurodivergent users?
And what happens when I think about nature, acoustics, privacy, choice, control and wayfinding?
Perhaps most importantly:
What happens when all of these ideas overlap?
Human-centred design isn’t one design philosophy
This is something I’ve become increasingly interested in while researching design for wellbeing.
There are numerous approaches that ask us to think differently about the relationship between people and the built environment. These include human-centred design, trauma-informed design, sensory-inclusive design, neurodivergent-inclusive design, biophilic design, salutogenic design, neuroarchitecture, socially restorative design and inclusive design.
Each has its own emphasis, language and area of focus. But they don’t necessarily have to exist in isolation. In fact, they often intersect.
My previous article, Design for Well-Being: 7 Frameworks Shaping Modern Spaces, explored these different approaches individually. This project is an opportunity to start putting them together and seeing what happens when they are considered simultaneously.
And this is where I think human-centred design becomes particularly interesting.
Rather than treating each philosophy as a separate set of rules, we can start to think of them as different lenses through which to understand the same environment.
Case Study: GP Waiting Room
Start with the person
Instead of beginning with the question, What furniture should go in this waiting room? I started with a different question:
Who might be using it?
A patient might be anxious about their appointment, worried about their health, neurodivergent, sensitive to light or sound, cognitively overwhelmed or physically uncomfortable. They may dislike sitting close to strangers, be concerned about privacy, be unfamiliar with the building, or be accompanying a child or supporting an elderly relative. They may simply be tired, unwell or having a difficult day.
And there is no way of knowing what somebody is experiencing simply by looking at them.
A person doesn’t need a diagnosis to benefit from a calmer, clearer and more considerate environment. Designing with neurodivergent and sensory needs in mind can make environments better for everyone.
This principle is also increasingly reflected in healthcare guidance. NHS England’s current neighbourhood health centre specification calls for clear layouts, intuitive wayfinding, calm and organised waiting areas, natural light, sensory comfort, suitable seating and environments that respond to a wide range of physical, sensory and cognitive needs.
01 — Clarity before aesthetics
One of my first considerations was: what happens when somebody walks through the door?
Where do they go? Where do they sign in? Where do they wait? Where are the toilets? Where are the consultation rooms?
More importantly, does the environment tell them what to do?
The proposed layout creates a simple sequence:
Entrance → Reception → Sign-in → Waiting → Consultation
Clear signage and visual cues are used to reduce uncertainty and make the journey through the space easier to understand.
This is particularly important in healthcare environments, where people may already be anxious or cognitively overloaded.
Wayfinding isn’t simply about finding your way from A to B. It’s about reducing the mental work required to navigate a building.
A well-designed environment can communicate information without requiring people to stop and work it out.
NHS England’s healthcare wayfinding guidance recognises wayfinding as an important part of healthcare design, while its newer neighbourhood health centre specification specifically calls for intuitive wayfinding and simple circulation routes.
02 — What if waiting didn’t have to mean one thing?
This became one of the central ideas in my design. Instead of one large waiting area with identical rows of chairs, I introduced different levels of waiting.
There is a general waiting area alongside a quieter waiting zone.
The quiet area isn’t hidden away as a “special needs” room. It’s simply another choice.
Someone might choose it because they’re autistic. Someone else might choose it because they’re anxious. Another person might simply prefer sitting somewhere quieter.
We don’t need to know why someone needs a particular environment in order to give them the choice.
This idea of choice is surprisingly powerful. Rather than designing one environment and expecting everybody to adapt themselves to it, we can introduce some flexibility into the environment itself.
NHS England guidance specifically recommends waiting environments that consider sensory reactivity and, where a standard waiting room is distressing, alternatives where people have greater control over sound, light, temperature or other environmental factors.
03 — Designing for sensory differences
This is where sensory-inclusive and neurodivergent design principles begin to influence the space.
Rather than assuming that everybody experiences the same environment in the same way, I considered several different sensory factors.
Sound
Could acoustic panels, upholstered furniture, planting and spatial separation reduce reverberation and background noise?
Healthcare acoustics matter because unwanted noise can have physiological and psychological effects. NHS England describes acoustic design as fundamental to the quality of healthcare buildings.
Light
Could lighting be softer and more evenly distributed? Could glare be reduced? Could different areas have different levels of visual stimulation?
Visual information
Could unnecessary clutter be reduced? Could signage be clear without covering every available surface with information?
Touch and materials
Could furniture and materials provide different tactile experiences rather than creating a completely hard, clinical environment?
None of these considerations is exclusively “for” one particular group of people. They are simply ways of recognising that people experience environments differently.
The NHS sensory-friendly design guidance also identifies acoustic finishes, lighting and other environmental factors as important considerations when creating more sensory-friendly healthcare environments.
04 — Privacy without isolation
Another consideration was how to create privacy without making people feel completely isolated.
Instead of treating privacy as an all-or-nothing concept, I explored degrees of privacy.
Frosted glazing, planting, privacy screens, high-backed chairs and thoughtful furniture positioning can create small territories within a larger shared environment.
You can still see what’s happening, but you don’t necessarily feel as though you’re sitting in the middle of everyone else’s waiting room.
This is particularly interesting from a trauma-informed perspective.
A sense of safety can come from being able to understand your surroundings while also having somewhere that feels protected. Being able to choose where to sit, what you face and how exposed you feel can introduce a small but meaningful sense of control.
05 — Bringing nature into healthcare
The next major layer is biophilic design.
I’ve introduced timber, plants, living walls, natural-looking flooring, green tones, natural imagery and organic textures.
The intention isn’t simply to make the waiting room prettier; it’s to change the emotional character of the environment.
Healthcare spaces can easily become very institutional: white walls, hard surfaces, artificial lighting, plastic furniture and signs everywhere.
I wanted to explore what happens when some of that is replaced with warmth, natural materials, greenery, softness and visual connection to nature.
The result hopefully feels less like an institution and more like a place designed for human beings.
06 — Choice becomes a design feature
One of the ideas I keep coming back to across these projects is control.
We often think of control as something operational, but the physical environment can give people small amounts of control too.
Where they sit. How close they are to other people. Whether they choose the quieter area. Whether they face the entrance. Whether they have a wall behind them. Whether they can see what is happening. Whether they can retreat from the main flow of activity.
These might seem like very small decisions, but collectively they can change how someone experiences a space.
And this is where several design philosophies begin to overlap:
Trauma-informed design can support safety and control.
Sensory-inclusive design can support regulation and choice.
Neurodivergent-inclusive design can encourage predictable and adaptable environments.
Salutogenic design considers comprehensibility and manageability.
Human-centred design brings us back to understanding the person behind the use of the space.
The interesting part is that one design decision can potentially support several of these principles at once.
The overlap is where it gets interesting
This is probably the biggest thing I’m taking away from this project.
I don’t think these approaches need to be treated as separate boxes; instead, imagine them as overlapping circles.
A quiet waiting area could be sensory-inclusive, trauma-informed, human-centred and salutogenic — and simply a nicer place to wait.
Clear signage could support neurodivergent people, older people, people with cognitive impairment, people who are anxious and people who have never visited the building before.
Natural light and planting could contribute to biophilic wellbeing, visual comfort and a more welcoming atmosphere.
Choice of seating could support sensory regulation, privacy, physical comfort, autonomy and social preference.
The same design decision can therefore serve multiple human needs, and that, to me, is the real potential of human-centred design.
Designing for difference benefits everyone
I think this is where the conversation around neurodivergent design can sometimes become unnecessarily narrow.
We shouldn’t only ask:
“What does an autistic person need?”
We should also ask:
“What could we learn from autistic experiences that could improve the environment for everyone?”
The same applies to trauma-informed design, accessibility, dementia-friendly design, sensory-inclusive design and biophilic design.
When we design for the edges of human experience, we often end up creating better environments for the middle too.
A quieter environment can benefit everyone. A clearer route can benefit everyone. Better acoustics can benefit everyone. More comfortable seating can benefit everyone. Natural light can benefit everyone. Having somewhere to retreat can benefit everyone.
And perhaps most importantly, having a choice can benefit everyone.
So, is this what a GP waiting room should look like?
Not necessarily.
And that’s not really the point of this exercise.
This isn’t a finished proposal. It hasn’t been developed with patients, clinicians, healthcare architects, accessibility specialists or the people who would actually use the space.
It is a design thought experiment.
The purpose is to take an ordinary environment and ask:
What would happen if we looked at it differently?
Then to layer different design philosophies over the top and see where they intersect.
The next stage of a real project would involve much more: user research, lived-experience input, consultation with healthcare professionals, accessibility assessment, technical healthcare requirements, acoustic analysis, lighting calculations, infection-control considerations, fire and building regulations, detailed spatial planning and post-occupancy evaluation.
This concept doesn’t attempt to answer those questions.
It is the beginning of the conversation.
A growing series of design experiments
This is actually why I’m enjoying these projects.
I’m not trying to produce a portfolio full of perfectly resolved interiors.
I’m using design as a way of learning.
I can take a classroom and ask:
What happens when we design around the human experience of learning?
I can take a GP waiting room and ask:
What happens when we design around the human experience of waiting, anxiety and uncertainty?
Then perhaps a workplace. A library. A train station. A care home. A community centre. A supermarket. A social housing environment.
Each space brings a different set of human experiences and therefore a different combination of design approaches.
And with each project, I learn something new.
The bigger question
Perhaps the most interesting question isn’t:
“Which design philosophy should we use?”
It is:
“What does this particular group of people need from this particular environment?”
Once we understand that, different design approaches become tools rather than rules.
Human-centred design gives us the starting point:
Understand the person.
Sensory-inclusive design helps us understand:
How might they experience the environment?
Trauma-informed design asks:
Does this environment support safety, dignity and control?
Biophilic design asks:
How might our connection with nature influence the experience?
Salutogenic design asks:
Does the environment help people understand, manage and find meaning in their surroundings?
Neuroarchitecture asks:
How might spatial characteristics influence cognitive and physiological responses?
Together, they allow us to ask something much bigger:
How can we design environments that work better for human beings?
And that’s the question I want to keep exploring.
A little note on this series
The images in this article are conceptual design studies created by OKOS KOTI. They are not full architectural or interior design proposals.
They are intentionally rough visualisations — a way of thinking through ideas spatially and exploring how different human-centred design principles might translate into the built environment.
The intention is to learn, question and explore rather than present a finished solution.
