What happens between us.
A BlackBook discipline for observing, understanding and designing what happens between people.
Every organisation intends an experience. People live another one.
REGARD studies the human layer of an experience — and the gap between what an organisation intends and what a person actually lives. Not the brand promise, not the floor plan: the moments between people.
RECOGNITION
Is the person seen — or processed?
ATTENTION
Who is actually present for them, and when?
CAPABILITY
Can people on the floor act, or only refer?
OWNERSHIP
Who carries the moment when it goes wrong?
HANDOFFS
What is lost between one person and the next?
WAITING
What does the wait say about how much they matter?
RECOVERY
How does a mistake become a reason to return?
DEPARTURE
What is the last thing they feel — and keep?
One place. Two observation layers.
What is this place doing to me?
The Field makes light, thresholds, movement, attention and atmosphere observable. Its spatial observation application is live.
The spatial perspective →Am I seen, welcomed and helped?
The Human Experience is being developed as an optional REGARD mission within The Field. It will capture how people are welcomed, recognised and helped throughout a visit.
Arrival. Asking for help. Waiting. A problem and its recovery. Departure.
Three questions will guide each Human Moment:
- What happened?
- What did it do to your experience?
- What did you need at that moment?
The REGARD Line™
The mission will connect these moments into a REGARD Line™ — a record of how the human experience changes throughout a visit, grounded in what the observer actually experienced.
In a professional REGARD audit, these observations support pattern analysis, an understanding of the conditions behind the experience, a Human Standard for the place, practical improvements and a return visit.
It starts with observation.
SEE
Observe lived Human Moments in the place itself.
UNDERSTAND
Find the conditions behind them — not the people to blame.
DEFINE
Write the Human Standard for this place.
ENABLE
Give people the capability and permission to meet it.
NORMALISE
Make the standard the ordinary way things are done.
OBSERVE AGAIN
Return, look again, and see what actually changed.
Evidence, then a standard.
A REGARD audit turns lived Human Moments into evidence: what happened, where, to whom and under which conditions. It looks at systems, roles and spaces rather than individual blame.
From that evidence we define a Human Standard for the place — a short, usable description of how people should be met, helped and let go — and what needs to change so it can become normal.
Every audit is scoped to the place and the question. There is no fixed package.
REGARD™ — Method & Audit
The practical companion to REGARD, with observation guidance and audit worksheets for studying the lived human experience.
Human Moment field sheets, the REGARD Line™, a cause map, the Experience Gap, a Human Standard and re-observation.
Enquire about the companion →Register your interest in the companion workbook.