Home /  / Good Light Wake-up Call | A Must-Have Healthy Lighting Checklist for Designers and Engineers

Good Light Wake-up Call | A Must-Have Healthy Lighting Checklist for Designers and Engineers

Post read time 3 min read

Good Light Wake-up Call | Method 01

Turning “Good Light” into Deliverable: Designers and engineers need a checklist.

This is the second phase of Good Light Wake-up Call: Explaining Healthy Lighting Clearly:
No longer just talking about “feel,” but making good light — deliverable, verifiable, and maintainable.

1. Pain Point: Why “meeting the standard” still feels uncomfortable?

You’ve probably seen this on site: the plan looks great, the lights are expensive, but it comes down to: “How do we verify it? You say it’s good; I say it feels wrong.”

The issue isn’t professionalism — it’s the lack of a common language. Only checking “desk illuminance” ignores “human perception evidence.” Only renderings exist, no reproducible deliverables.

2. One-sentence conclusion (here’s the answer first)

Good light is not a result — it’s a process: measurable, adjustable, verifiable, and maintainable.

3. Three Key Principles (remember these 3)

  1. Define the “scene” before the parameters
    Same space, different times of day (day/night), activities (work/relax), or users (elderly/children) require different setups. No scene → no correct metric combination.
  2. Verification is more than “horizontal illuminance”
    Humans experience light with their eyes: brightness distribution, glare, background brightness, flicker, and control strategy determine comfort and efficiency.
  3. Delivery must be maintainable
    Even the best lights fail if there’s no commissioning record, control logic, or maintenance method — after three months, performance degrades.

4. A shareable visual: 10-point Good Light Delivery Checklist

Recommended to screenshot. Useful for design, engineering, and client communication.

Good Light Delivery Checklist | 10 Items

01 Scene & Schedule – Are morning/afternoon/evening (or work/cleaning/night) scenarios defined? What is the goal for each scene (focus/relax/safety)?

02 Glare Control (tackle bright points first) – Any exposed bright spots in sight? Are downlights, strips, or reflections glaring? Are there shields, grids, diffusers, or proper aiming?

03 Background Brightness (walls/ceilings) – Is it “bright desk, dark walls”? Are there wall washes/indirect lights to brighten space without glare?

04 Eye-level Experience (vertical plane) – Is light on faces, walls, screens considered? Comfortable from common positions (sitting/standing)?

05 Task Area Illuminance – Are key areas like desks, prep areas, corridors, stairs meeting target levels? Metrics must be measurable, not just felt.

06 Uniformity & Contrast – Any strong light-dark gaps? Any “dark pits” or hotspots in corridors, meeting rooms, bedside, countertops?

07 Flicker Risk (especially dimming) – Evaluate commonly used and low-light levels. Following WELL v2, check SVM / PstLM (lower is better) and keep records.

08 Color Quality – Not just CRI Ra; also check skin tone, wood, and food appear natural. Are different fixtures consistent in the same space?

09 Control & Commissioning – Are dimming curves smooth? Is low light stable? Is there “one-touch scene switching” to avoid daily manual adjustments?

10 Delivery Documentation (long-term performance) – Provided: circuit/fixture list, control logic, scene parameters, commissioning records, maintenance recommendations? Future changes should be traceable.

5. Small action you can do today (30-minute quick site check)

Take the 10 items and do a quick on-site check: pick your most-used spot (desk/sofa/bedside) and ask three questions:

  1. Is it glaring?
  2. Are walls bright enough?
  3. Is low light stable?

Map answers to checklist items 02 / 03 / 07 — usually enough to find the most effective improvements.

6. 30-second summary (easy to copy and share)

Good light must be deliverable: not just desk illuminance.
One checklist resolves disputes: scene, glare, background, eye-level experience, uniformity/contrast, flicker, color, control/commissioning, documentation.
Measurable, adjustable, verifiable, maintainable — this is Good Light.

7. About Good Light Group & Good Light Group Asia

The Good Light Group (GLG) is a non-profit network with the vision: Good Light brings healthier, better life. It connects lighting industry, design, research, and healthy building partners to promote human-centric, verifiable, and actionable healthy lighting methods and advocacy.

Good Light Group Asia (GLGA) is GLG’s regional platform in Asia, focused on market and supply chain specifics, promoting three things:

  1. Explain healthy light clearly: make health lighting knowledge understandable for everyone
  2. Make healthy light happen: deliver practical scene-based methods and best practices for design and engineering
  3. Verify healthy light: use objective measurements and transparent processes to build trust and quality

If you agree that Good Light needs to be explained, implemented, and verified — follow GLGA and help turn these methods into industry consensus.