Chairs and Furniture

This chapter consists of an overview of ergonomics appropriate to workplaces that utilize chairs and

associated furniture. Such workplaces are typically described as “offices.” However, in determining the

scope of this material, it is necessary to consider a fundamental question: what is an office? In the

modern electronic workplace, the answer is not straightforward. A traditional (Oxford English Diction-

ary) definition states that an office is “. . . a place for the transaction of private or public business”

(Oxford University Press, 1971). With the profusion of portable computers and communications

equipment, almost any location can fit that definition: an airport waiting room, a kitchen table,

an automobile, even a park bench. For purposes of this chapter, we will focus on workplaces

whose primary purpose is some aspect of information processing and transformation, where some

sort of computer equipment is employed, and whose occupants are expected to remain in place

for extended periods of time (i.e., several hours). These are the venues within which the bulk of

the scientific research has been conducted. On the other hand, the general principles discussed

here can be usefully applied to more temporary venues (e.g., setting up a temporary workspace

with a laptop and modem in a hotel room).