Many of the factors of importance for visual comfort in daylit environments are the same as those for artificially lit environments. However, the direction, quantity, quality, variability and information content of daylight is significantly different to that of electric light, which will cause differences in the levels of visual comfort in the two lighting conditions.

Glare

Working on a building design to examine the options for balancing heat gain/ loss / lighting requires suitable:.

Identifying suitable design options requires good documentation of the design opportunities – their advantages and disadvantages – the energy performance and the user perceptions – and finally the suitability to different climates - some obstacles to good daylighting: costs, drawbacks, lack of knowledge, etc

An IEA research Task on Optimization of Solar Energy Use in Large Buildings established that the most important first step in designing a successful low energy solar building is to establish what metrics might be used to eastablish success. For example, with lighting quality, the client, the energy analyst and the lighting analyst and the architect (who may be one and the same person!) must establish how they are to measure success in the context of the work or activity in the building.