Connect the visit to your strategy
A building visit brings the strategy into everyday experience. Follow a visitor through reception, compare a room’s displayed status with its use, or ask an operator to explain a schedule. Record each observation in context and use it to identify the next useful question.
The examples in this guide are hypothetical. For your own visit, record what you observed, the host’s explanation and the evidence still needed, with the date and operating conditions. A clear record lets the team assess the finding and follow it up.
Agree the visit’s purpose with the client: review arrival, inform a refurbishment, compare workplace technologies or understand an operating issue. Choose a route that follows that question and the people affected. Finish with evidence and actions that support the next decision.
Prepare a route and an evidence request
Ask the host who should join: workplace and facilities teams, reception, security or the relevant system owner. Choose a route that follows the experience being considered. For arrival, begin with the invitation and transport instructions, then continue through reception to the destination. For workplace use, include different space types rather than only the showpiece meeting room.
Request a small amount of useful material in advance: a current plan with consistent room names, the relevant system list, a description of the intended journey and the available reporting period. If an operating question is central, ask for metering boundaries, schedules or trend extracts that the authorised team can provide. An unavailable document is an evidence gap to record, not a reason to invent its contents.
Agree photography and publication permission separately from access to the building. Avoid capturing names, visitor records, credentials, security configurations or other people’s screens. Arrange read-only demonstrations. Testing entry failure, changing controls or probing interfaces needs its own authorised scope and competent participants.
Record the date, time, route and exceptional conditions. Explain when a floor is partly vacant during fit-out or reception is handling a special event, so the team can distinguish that visit from normal operation.
Arrival: follow the information as well as the person
At each step, ask what the visitor needs to know, where that information comes from and who maintains it. Does the invitation use the same entrance and room names as reception and wayfinding? Who receives an arrival notification? Where does a visitor go if they need assistance?
Walk the ordinary route and ask the host to explain the exception route. A changed meeting room, a visitor without a compatible phone, an expired invitation or a temporary network problem can reveal responsibilities that a successful demonstration leaves hidden. Ask how these are handled; do not stage an unauthorised failure at a live security boundary.
Hypothetical observation: the invitation names “West meeting suite”, but the room display says “W-03”. Record the wording and where each appeared. The host may explain that reception gives directions. Your interpretation might be that maintaining shared room identities deserves review. Those are three different statements, not proof of an integration failure.
Give the follow-up a named owner: confirm the naming source and update process across invitations, booking, signs and reception instructions. Carry the finding into a shared requirement the project can specify and check.
Look beyond the successful phone demonstration. Can someone enlarge the instructions, use an alternative input method or reach the same destination without that particular handset? W3C’s mobile accessibility guidance considers different devices, input methods and conditions such as bright light. Bring those differences into the planned evaluation, alongside the agreed assisted route and reception service.
Workplace: ask what “available” actually means
A room can appear empty and remain booked for a perfectly understandable reason. Someone may be returning, the meeting may start shortly, or the displayed status may update on a delay. A photograph records a moment; it cannot establish a daily utilisation rate.
Ask the host to identify the source behind the status: booking, detected presence, people count or an operating rule that combines them. Ask which area it covers, how quickly it updates and what happens when information is unavailable. The XY Sense explanation of mapping sensors to spaces , for example, distinguishes the sensing arrangement from the mapped spaces reported to an integration. A visible device is not necessarily a one-to-one room record.
Hypothetical observation: a display shows “in use” while the room looks empty from the corridor. Do not conclude that the sensor is inaccurate. Ask for the status definition, the applicable delay and a history covering that time. Confirm whether the display is even using sensing data.
For a planning decision, request a representative period and an agreed measure. Capacity use, time use, booking demand and reported availability answer different questions. Include peak days and known exceptions rather than extrapolating from the quiet hour of the visit.
Indoor conditions: understand the measurement
Where environmental information is visible, record the parameter, unit, location and timestamp. Ask whether it is a local measurement, an average or a value imported from elsewhere. A green symbol without those definitions is difficult to evaluate.
HSE’s CO₂-monitor guidance explains that positioning and repeated readings matter, and recommends recording people numbers and ventilation conditions. A single reading cannot establish that a building has good indoor air quality.
Identify who maintains the device, checks questionable readings and reviews persistent exceptions. Ask how occupants raise concerns and receive a response. Connect the visible information to a workable operating process.
For the field note, describe what was available to observe and the follow-up needed. Specialist assessment, longer monitoring or checks against the device specification may be required before drawing a technical conclusion. Do not turn an attractive sensor, a comfortable visit or a coloured indicator into a health claim.
Operation: connect the screen to the building
Ask an operator to explain one information flow end to end. Which physical area or equipment produces the reading? Where is it collected? How is it labelled? Who sees an exception? Who can authorise a change? This is more revealing than a tour of every dashboard tab.
If a resource chart is part of the demonstration, ask the operating team to confirm its meter boundary, unit, interval and completeness. A whole-building supply and a room-level count should not be described as matching simply because both appear on the same screen. Keep the underlying export and the explanation together where permission allows.
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s building re-tuning guidance combines building information, trend analysis and a walk-down before identifying actions. That is a useful discipline for investigation; a consultancy visit is not a substitute for commissioning, specialist testing or an authorised controls intervention.
Also ask where the operating explanation is kept. CIBSE’s Building log book toolkit describes an accessible summary of intended building operation and maintenance, with responsibility for keeping it current. A current summary can make a demonstration understandable beyond the person giving it.
Finish with continuity: who supports the interface, who owns the account and how staff work if the application is unavailable. Good Buildings’ contribution is to clarify requirements, connections and evidence alongside the appointed operators and specialists.
Write a note someone else can check
Use the same record for each observation: what was seen, what was reported, the interpretation and the follow-up. Keep the original evidence alongside later explanations so the reasoning remains traceable.
- Observed: what you directly saw, the location, time and evidence reference.
- Reported: what the host or operating team explained, attributed to the appropriate role and subject to publication permission.
- Interpretation: the question or possible explanation raised, with alternatives still open.
- Follow-up: the evidence requested, its owner, the decision it supports and a review date.
A useful conclusion might be: “The room names differed between the invitation and display. The host described a manual update process. Confirm the room register and update ownership before specifying a shared naming requirement.” It should not become: “The building’s systems do not work together.”
Before publication, ask the relevant people to check attribution, factual descriptions and permissions. An editorial field note can explain an interesting decision without disclosing the access configuration, a supplier’s confidential material or an employer’s intellectual property.
Agree the next step
Close the visit by agreeing what has become clearer, which gaps affect the strategy and what will resolve them. Prioritise the evidence that changes the next decision and give each action an owner.
The next step might be a workshop to define arrival, a focused data review, an options assessment or an interface specification for a project already under way. Match the scope to the finding and the outcome the client wants.
A good field note connects the building’s purpose to a practical action. It explains what was seen, what remains unknown and why the next piece of evidence matters to the people using and running the building.
Before commissioning another survey, ask what would change if the observation is confirmed. Would the finding alter an investment, a requirement or an operating responsibility? Prioritise the evidence that can change the next decision.
Sources and further reading
- W3C Web Accessibility Initiative — mobile accessibility. Explains how accessibility guidance addresses devices, touchscreens, alternative inputs and different use conditions; a starting point for evaluating the digital parts of arrival and workplace journeys.
- XY Sense — how sensor observations map to reported spaces . A worked explanation of why coverage and room identities need checking.
- HSE — taking and interpreting workplace CO₂ measurements .
- Pacific Northwest National Laboratory — the building re-tuning investigation process . Includes trend evidence and site observation.
- CIBSE — Building log book toolkit (TM31) . Explains a maintained summary of operation and responsibilities; the linked page describes the publication.