Set good defaults | Hacker News Reader

Set good defaults

justinkan.com

69 pointsarram28 comments

I'm curious about the standing desk because to me it's always seemed like something that would make me focus less on the task at hand. Then again, I've always been baffled by how others at the gym can read novels while on the eliptical. I can't even focus properly on the TV shows the gym has running when I'm exercising. Perhaps it's a reflection of my overall health or maybe my brain is wired in a way where I can't handle both involved physical and mental activity.

I'd like to hear from people who use standing desks on how it's affected their productivity and quality of work.

I have a comfy stool to sit in at my standing desk. I've found that without even thinking about it, I stand when producing, and sit when consuming. For example I'll sit and read some documentation or sample code, then stand to write my code. Standing felt quite natural after a day or two.

As for productivity/quality of work, it's not worse. For quality of life, it's much better as I don't feel as drained at the end of the day.

Same: producing when standing, consuming when sitting. I'm actually more productive, and if feels great. I'm also much more mobile when standing - I'll walk around if I'm thinking.

I am more physically tired at the end of the day, but in a good way.

I use a standing desk a lot (six of eight hours, doing it for the last couple of years), am a bit unfit and pudgy, and I'm doing fine. I can get in the "zone" just the same as sitting, and as far as I can tell it hasn't negatively affected the quality of my work.

To me, it feel like it kills the post-lunch haze, and reduces the friction to move around. I find it easier when brainstorming to pace or just walk away to a whiteboard, for example. I shift my weight from one foot to the other, bend my knees, and generally move around a bit during the day. I take sit-down breaks every hour like you'd take a stand-up break.

I tried it out by stacking some things on my desk[1]. Make sure to keep the same sort of ergonomic setup with standing as sitting (eg. monitor at eye-height, arms flat to the keyboard, etc); staring down at a laptop is just going to make you unhappy.

I'd be careful before jumping on the stand-all-day bandwagon, though: http://ergo.human.cornell.edu/CUESitStand.html

(And beware of confirmation bias[2] when first switching over. If you're happy with it at first, give it a little while before deciding whether or not to go for the long haul. Last thing you want to do is regret dropping the cash on a standing desk.)

1. http://instagram.com/p/MUmlP/ http://instagram.com/p/SWS7gDO6Tg/ http://instagram.com/p/Jy1d6Qu6cj/

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Yeah, I tried the stand desk thing for a little bit, and it did increase my productivity, but i found it killed my output quality. At a stand desk, everything feels like panic mode. Sometimes you just need to sit down and think about something. If you're doing data entry or answering emails or something like that where you're looking forward to the job being over it's probably okay, but for actually solving problems and building things I really didn't like it.

Hi, I'm a bit biased as an investor in, and CFO for, a startup company that hopes to revolutionize the way people work. That said, I have been working at the Focal Upright Workstation (Locus Seat and Locus Desk) with an anti-fatigue mat on the seat base and I LOVE it. Way more energy, focus is not an issue (though I don't think this would be the case on a treadmill desk) and a great relief on the lower back issues that would crop up after sitting all day. Our website www.focaluprightfurniture.com has more info and videos. If you are familiar with Keen Footwear you'll be interested to know that this workstation was designed by Martin Keen who founded Keen Footwear earlier in his career.

As a developer I find that I can only do certain kinds of activities while standing. I like standing for planning and responding to email, but if I'm writing code I generally like to sit down. I have a setup like this one: http://www.simplifiedbuilding.com/blog/split-level-sitting-a...

I have two monitors and I just changed which one is hooked up to my laptop.

I got a standing desk. A year later I had foot problems and my podiatrist told me to stop standing at my desk as it was hurting my feet.

Floor pads and good shoes are essential equipment.

I don't see much of a correlation between these goofy treadmill desks and user interface defaults. I like the UI example of what they do at Exec, I think it's a smart design. But the second half of the article just reminds me of Mitch Hedberg's joke about escalators.

I think the connection is that he's going to work regardless, and if the default (via a treadmill desk or standing desk) is to be healthier, he'll do that. It would take work to find a chair and sit down and be less healthy, then.

I'm very curious about this claim

> I appreciate the most about having a treadmill desk is that even if I don’t turn it on once during a day it still functions by default as a standing desk, which is already way better for you than sitting!

As far as I can tell the only thing we know is sitting is bad. We don't know that standing desks are good. Standing desks could ruin your feet. Treadmills could ruin your eye site as your head bounces as you try to read.

If there is some evidence that standing desks and treadmill desks are actually a net positive it would be nice to see the citations rather the just citations that sitting is bad.

Defaulting to the last thing the user did is very often the simplest and best thing to do. But I'd question the initial defaults -- is 1 b.r. 1 bath the most common option? Maybe it is. Is it the most common option for people wanting their place cleaned?

For all I know you've figured this stuff out and the answer to both questions is yes.

Business reasons can in this case also effect what sane defaults are. Maybe one want to anchor the consumers thoughts by defaulting with "cleaning the whole house" and barging down, or maybe one want to start with one of the cheapest options and barging up. This is where testing really shine as one can test each default for a while and see what default brings most revenue.

In a business like this, I'd optimize for repeat customers rather than revenue, but your point is taken.

Good defaults also let you give power users complex features while keeping the common case manageable.

For http://ratchet.io , we're currently working on overhauling our notification system. The new system is rule-based, extremely flexible, and can be as complex to configure as you want it to be. But we're providing sane defaults -- e.g. "email everyone on the project when a new error occurs in production", "if Pivotal Tracker is set up, create a story for each new error" -- so it will (hopefully!) work just fine for most people out of the box.

Too many things are called ratchet. Reading your comment, I got you confused with

maker.github.com/ratchet/

The power of defaultism is why Internet Explorer still has 26% market share.

And why Bing has users, and why other competitors to Google have a very hard time getting traction.

Speaking of unconventional desk surfaces, does anyone make a good wall-mounted standing keyboard tray? All I can find are crazy articulated arm systems and gigantic freestanding desks. I just want a ready-made shelf designed to be used for only a keyboard + mouse facing a wall-mounted monitor.

I really like my crazy articulated Ergotron arms (I have 3 x 24" + 1 x 17" MBP on my desk using 2 double ergotron arms). I would from now on always buy adjustable arms. The ideal would be an even bigger desk with 3-4 27-30" monitors and 2-3 work areas, and the ability to assign monitor to machine fairly independently (right now I have a dual-card PC on all 3 (as well as PC to HDMI 1080p projector), and mac as secondary on one, and cables for servers/other machines on the other two monitors. I usually leave 2 monitors on the PC and one on the mac laptop.

Once I upgrade the Mac to something which can drive a 2-3 externals (ideally, a new Mac Pro), it will get more complex; may need to use a matrix switch.

I work at an Ergotron Workfit-S: http://www.ergotron.com/tabid/640/Default.aspx it's a contraption you drop on top of a regular desk, and provides a keyboard shelf as well as mounting for monitor(s) and laptops (I am now on a dual monitor, previously had 1 monitor + laptop shelf, so I'd drop my mbp on it and connect to the monitor). The whole thing slides up and down, and the shelf moves independently as well. Lets me move from sitting to standing easily, lets me adjust to different postures and moods etc.

Been using one for over a year now, very happy with it.

Doesn't a standard ikea shelf do the job?

These are often too narrow and end with your face in the screen. I've apparently got perfect vision but had difficulty focusing when I attempted such a setup using standard-depth shelving.

Market opportunity: Resell standard Ikea shelf kits as "wall-mounted standing desks" and capture a price premium from bcoates.

It probably would, but I was hoping for something a little more built-to-task: holes for cables, a grippy surface, the right size, etc.

Defaults are everything.

Most people seem to heavily underestimate their power and potential.

On servers, distros that has sane defaults and do not force one to configure every little piece of software is clearly "winning" over the more old ways of compile and configure. Back when BSD was the normal OS for servers, distros like Debian really showed the way that sane defaults was way superior than to the no defaults policy some had.

Thankfully we have moved away from the no defaults. Some places still need to see the benefits first hand, but universally, the old policy that said one should have no defaults is long gone. Those that previously had no defaults have mostly moved to the same style as Debian.

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