Five Best Office Chairs
lifehacker.com
lifehacker.com
At that point, it is vital that you remember two things:
First, chairs are cheap compared to salaries.
Second, an inflexible policy is an impediment to working at your company.
Don't set a policy like "We buy Aeron for everybody." If you have an esthetic issue (don't laugh, some companies do, I've worked at one) make the policy "All chairs are black". Pretty much every chair can be ordered in black, and nobody outside your company will ever notice a chair that they someone is using at their desk.
That being said, at my last work there was a significant remodeling of the office space by a designer. As in, the techboys roll their eyes type designer. She was there to customise our area, as long as we fitted into the grand design. So we had these chairs that fit into the grand design. Attractive chairs. But terrible for sitting in, and the seat pan was way too low. I cited my height and kept my old chair. "But it doesn't fit in with the design!" was followed with "We'll get you cushions!" (which were never seen...). Over time, I noticed other staff were taking my lead and going with chairs that worked for them rather than chairs that looked good. Long story short, I like your 'all chairs must be black' idea, it's far better than making all chairs the same.
Perhaps their quality has gone downhill over the decades.
I will also note that you can find Aerons for about half-price used and the Steelcase Leap for an even greater discount (as it is not as well known.) I paid $350 for my current Steelcase Leap, and that included delivery (of myself and the chair) right to my doorstep in the nice older gentleman's Mercedes, complete with heated seats.
While we agree on this point, I feel that this is bandied about a little too liberally. I love comforts and toys as much as the next, but this has been the general progression of the above argument at my current company :
1. "GeekDesks cost *nothing* next to a developer salary" : GeekDesk acquired ($900 per)
2. "Ergonomic chairs cost *nothing* next to a developer's salary" : Steelcase Leap chairs acquired ($1k per)
3. "30 inch Dell UltraSharps cost *nothing* next to a developer's salary" : Dell UltraSharps acquired ($1.2k per)
4. "New machines cost *nothing* next to a developer's salary" : Retina MBP's acquired ($2.2k per)
etc.
When compounded with other perks such as paid conferences, travel expenses (hotels etc), office meals and books, the costs of maintaining an office can rapidly spiral upwards.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/57654.php http://rsna2006.rsna.org/rsna2006/V2006/conference/event_dis...
The only downside is that many people will associate leaning back in your chair with your feet up as being lazy. For this reason I printed out that article and pinned it to my cubicle wall.
For the record, I tend to develop using a laptop resting on my legs, and my arms at my side, since my desk chair is pretty wide.
I do wonder whether I'm going to regret this in 20 years.
I had the previous version and just replaced it with a new one. The old one gave me 10 years of great service but the seat padding needs replaced and re-upholstered, and there's something gone a bit shonky with the backrest adjustment.
I work from home and after using it for 8-12 hours a day (with usual sensible breaks) my back and backside feel just fine. It's a pretty comfy chair, even for a big lad who's enjoyed too many pies, like me.
[1] http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/catalog/products/S59896332/?query=...
It's large enough to accomodate me very comfortably, it's built like a tank, it's adjustable to hell and back, and it's less than $400. The casters that come with it seem to be solid as well, though I replaced them with a set of nice rubber ones that would glide a bit better under the weight.
It's held me well for around 6 months now with no sign of letting up, and I have very few complaints (namely, that the headrest adjustment is done via discrete notches rather than a continuous adjustment). Can't say enough good things about it.
I eventually bought a Hon 7800 Series chair (http://www.hon.com/Products/Chairs/7808.aspx) and haven't had any issues at all for the last 3 - 4 years.
I easily spent more for all of the Office Star chairs that I discarded than the one Hon 7800 Series.
Herman Miller Embody: The chair I like the best and bought for around ~$850 here http://www.businessinteriors.ca/. More details about the deal here: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/herman-miller-embody-841-a-11.... Everything about the chair is adjustable, which I think is very important for many reasons. People tend to shift sitting positions after a while, one size never fits all and the chair must adjust to fit the table. The full mesh construction and deep recline are also important if you are sitting for long periods of time.
Herman Miller Aeron: Only tried this in the store for a few hours. Very comfortable. Same pros as the Embody except for the full back support and a few adjustable features like seat length, which was important for me because of my leg pain.
IKEA Markus: I've heard good things about this, but I had to return it after sitting on it for 2 weeks. My leg pains got worse and I suspect that is because the seat was too hard and long for me. The price was right, but the lack of adjustable features meant it was no good for me. Also, why make the back out of mesh, but not the seat? Our butts are where we feel most of the pressure.
Humanscale Freedom Chair: Only sat on it for a few minutes. I felt they might have compromised on comfort to build an easy to use chair. The lack of mesh also makes me sceptical that I could use it for long periods of time.
tl;dr: The most comfortable chairs that fixed my pressure points were fully adjustable, were completely constructed out of mesh and had a deep recline.
http://www.knoll.com/products/product.jsp?prod_id=188
I tested most of the other ones in this post, and liked this one better.
The company I worked for is long gone but chair's moved on with me and is still serving me well. A good chair is probably an even better productivity investment than a fast computer - especially in the long run.
[Edit for clarity.]
Yeah, I'm looking at getting another for home.
http://www.dwr.com/product/lc4-chaise-lounge-cowhide.do?sort...
and I can now offer as an update that it's really working out well from a comfort perspective. Obviously, this isn't necessarily feasible in most offices; but if you work from home, I highly recommend it.
I should probably build myself a better work area here, and that recliner plus laptop combo worked out really well...
And actually, the ability to take short breaks and walk around is something I really cherish. Removing the (small) barrier of needing to get up has really helped.
But you can not read too much into my experience report with the standing desk: I took up weightlifting at the same time I got my standing desk, and so it's hard for me to say which change was responsible for which improvement.
It took my about 3 weeks to get to that point. For the first few weeks, my feet hurt a lot. But at some point I passed a threshold and it pretty much stopped hurting altogether as long as I can walk around and shift my weight from one leg to the other a lot (I couldn't stand still all day).
Despite using the desk for a year and a half, I couldn't stand at it for more than an hour or so without back pain. To me, the real benefit of the adjustable height desk was being able to raise it up to a comfortable height for sitting -- I could finally sit with my feet flat on the floor in front of me!
A few months later, after a company in the university's research park folded, we got to pick over the bones and grab some office furniture. I managed to get a rolling, armless, adjustable height drafting stool. The combination of the GeekDesk and that stool was nirvana as far as sitting in an office goes -- I was able to leave the desk at the same height whether I was standing or sitting on the stool, which made it easy to switch back and forth throughout the day.
One downside to the desk: since most people I worked with were shorter (sometimes significantly!) than me, I often had to temporarily lower my chair and desk so other people could easily see something on my computer screen. On the other hand, it was easy (and rather awesome) to have conversations with coworkers who were roughly the same height as me -- I just stood up, pushed the chair out of the way, and had room for a standing conversation with two other people who could all see the screen.
The Aeron small is too narrow, and the medium seems to fit, but doesn't (major pain within an hour or so).
beyond that i just work standing up on a kitchen counter.
The Eames put a lot of thought into ergonomics and quality, so their stuff is better than your standard OfficeMax special. But I'd still pay for a Steelcase Leap or an Aeron (especially since they're cheaper on the used market).
I've really never understood Eames fetishization in general.