In A Developer's Second Most Important Asset, I described how buying a quality chair may be one of the smartest investments you can make as a software developer. I still believe this to be true, and I urge any programmers reading this to seriously consider the value of what you're sitting in while you're on the job. In our profession, seating matters: Choice of seating is as fundamental and constant as it gets in a programming career otherwise marked by relentless change. They are long term investments. Why not take the same care and consideration in selecting a chair as you would with the other strategic directions that you'll carry with you for the rest of your career? Skimping yourself on a chair just doesn't make sense. Although I've been quite happy with my Herman Miller Aeron chair over the last 10 years, I've always been a little disenchanted with the way it became associated with dot-com excess: In the '90s, the Aeron became an emblem of the dot-com boom; it symbolized mobility, speed, efficiency, and 24/seven work weeks.
The Aeron was a must-have for hot startups precisely because it looked the least like office furniture: It was more like a piece of machinery or unadorned engineering. The black Pellide webbing was durable, and hid whatever Jolt or Red Bull stains you might get on it. Held taut by an aluminum frame, the mesh allowed air to circulate and kept your body cool. What's more, the chair came in three sizes, like a personalized tool. Assorted knobs and levers allowed you to adjust the seat height, tilt tension, tilt range, forward tilt, arm height, arm width, arm angle, lumbar depth, and lumbar height. The Aeron was high-tech but sexy – which was how the dot-commers saw themselves. But baby-faced CEOs weren't drawn to the Aeron only for the way it looked. The Aeron was a visual expression of the anti-corporate zeitgeist, a non-hierarchical philosophy about the workplace. An office full of Aerons implicitly rejected the Fortune 500, coat-and-tie, brick-and-mortar model in which the boss sinks back in an overpriced, oversized, leather dinosaur while his secretary perches on an Office Max toadstool taking notes.
I recently had the opportunity to sit in a newer Herman Miller Mirra chair on a trip, and I was surprised how much more comfortable it felt than my classic Aeron. The Mirra chair was an excellent recliner, too. I've been disappointed by how poorly the Aeron reclines. I actually broke my Aeron's recline pin once and had to replace it myself. So I've retrained myself not to recline, which is awkward, as I'm a natural recliner. All this made me wonder if I should retire my Aeron and upgrade to something better. I liked the Mirra, but the comments to my original chair post have a lot of other good seating suggestions, too. Here are pictures and links to the chairs that were most frequently mentioned as contenders, in addition to the Mirra and Aeron pictured above: There were also some lesser known recommendations, such as the Haworth Zody chair, Nightingale CXO chair, BodyBilt ergo chairs, Hag kneeling chair, NeutralPosture ergo, the Chadwick Chair from the original designer of the Aeron, and something called the swopper.
Chair fit is, of course, a subjective thing. If you're investing $500+ in a chair, you'd understandably want to be sure it's "the one". The thing to do is find a local store that sells all these chairs and try them all out. Well, good luck with that. Don't even bother with your local big-box office supply chain. Your best bet seems to be back stores, as they tend to stock many of the more exotic chairs. Apparently they have a clientele of people who are willing to spend for comfort. Reviews of individual chairs are relatively easy to find, but aren't particularly helpful in isolation. What we need is a multi-chair review roundup. The only notable roundup I know of is Slate's late 2005 Sit Happens: The Search for the Best Desk Chair. It's not as comprehensive as I would like, but it does have most of the main contenders. Notably, Slate's winner was the HumanScale Liberty. Some other helpful resources I've found, both in the comments to this post, and elsewhere: If this is all a bit too much furniture porn for your tastes, I understand.
As for me, I'm headed off to my local friendly neighborhood back store to figure out which of these chairs will best replace my aging Aeron. By my calculations, the Aeron cost me about $7 per month over its ten year lifetime; I figure my continued health and comfort while programming are worth at least that much. Update: Since people have been asking, I ultimately decided the best fit and feel for me, personally, was the Herman Miller Mirra chair. It's a huge upgrade from my ten year old Aeron. It feels like three or four revisions better. For example, the front lip of the seat is adjustable, which addresses one of the major concerns I had with my Aeron – as well as the vastly improved reclining I mentioned above. The only unexpected downside is that the plastic back is a little rough on the skin if you sit, er... shirtless. Although I am very pleased with my new shadow Mirra with citron back (pic), I urge you to do the research and try the chairs yourself before deciding.Your average furniture designer would like you to believe his products will change your life.
Most don't, of course, but for millions of desk jockeys in offices around the globe, one task chair has done precisely that: the Aeron by Bill Stumpf (1936–2006) and Don Chadwick for Herman Miller. Originally conceived as a product for the elderly (Stumpf was the son of a gerontology nurse which undoubtedly influenced his approach), the task chair came to symbolize of a shift in the way offices conceived of furniture for employees. Everyone from a secretary to a CEO could have his or her own throne that represented the most thoughtful details and advanced engineering of the time. The design was an instant hit. MoMA acquired one for its collection before it debuted on the market in 1994. The idea of the chair was that it would conform to the sitter's needs, not vice versa. So the seat is made from breathable, stretchable fabric that's suspended like a supportive hammock on an aluminum frame. There are numerous adjustments—seat height, arm height and angle, tension of the reclining seat back, lumbar support position and depth—to accommodate myriad users.
Need to have an impromptu meeting with a coworker? The Aeron is set on wheels to make moving it around a breeze. The Aeron was based on the following tenets, which still inform the design and development of new task chairs for Herman Miller: 1. A chair should be perceived as comfortable before, during, and after sitting upon it. Comfort is as much a matter of the mind as of the body. 2. A chair should enhance the appearance of the person sitting upon it. 3. While allowing postural movement, the chair should also embrace the body. 4. The chair should provide correct support for the sacrum as well as the lumbar region of the spine. 5. The chair should provide a simple means for height and angular adjustments. A chair should be friendly to all parts of the body that touch it. Take Yves Behar's Sayl chair: it's 3-D back—inspired by suspension bridges—performs similarly to Stumpf and Chadwick's design, but eliminates the need for a separate lumbar support thanks to its supportive yet pliable structure.
The Aeron has also inspired knock-offs that seek to imitate its signature design elements, like the mesh construction. But the true testament to the chair's enduring influence could also be measured in pop-culture references. When the Simpsons depicted heaven in a March 2005 episode, God was perched in none other than Stumpf and Chadwick's masterpiece. Of course, the Aeron's legacy isn't all roses. As some keenly point out, the chair came to represent startup era excess. And thanks to its ergonomic design, the chair offered previously unheard of comfort—so much so that it actually encouraged people to remain sedentary for extended periods, not the healthiest of behaviors. Still, you have to give credit to a guy who managed to get people excited about a chair. Today would have been Stumpf's 80th birthday. And while the Aeron is what he'll be remembered for, it wasn't the only design he produced for Herman Miller: the manufacturer has sold over 10 million of his ergonomic chairs—seven million of which are Aerons—through the decades.