If you ever try buying an office chair online it can be a really overwhelming experience, depending on how you go about it here are some of the things you may find.

You visit a site selling office chairs and you are presented with a scrolling page filled with 100 different chair images and they are all shouting “Buy Me! Buy Me!” and when you get to the bottom of the page it says page 1 of 4 meaning there are 400 to choose from, just how are you supposed to make an informed choice?

Maybe you decide to try Twitter for help, surely there must be someone there who can advise you? Well yes and no, these days there are a ton of spammy tweets from suppliers carpet bombing the same message nearly every time,  hardly fills you with confidence does it?

Add to that the shed load of fake reviews through multiple Twitter accounts sure the headlines sound good – “Why You Need An Ergonomic Office Chair” so you click in hope and what do you find? Well after you wade through the AdSense ads you get to a review where the English seems like it was translated from the original Portuguese by someone whose first language clearly isn’t English and so you end up baling out after the first paragraph.

What about an auction site like eBay, although there are undoubtedly bargains to be had it also is not without its problems. First there is the logistics of getting the chair from one side of the country to the other in one piece should you win it.

Second you can’t be sure of the condition it is in, often the image on the auction is from the manufacturer’s website and even when it is a shot of the actual item photos tend to make things look better than they are in real life, it may be immaculate or it may have 200,000 miles on the clock you won’t truly know until it’s on your doorstep.

One of the most abused words these days is “Ergonomic” especially when used to describe an office chair and the reason is there is no clear definition of what it means, it’s little more than a concept a convenient term for implied quality. It is frequently used by suppliers to enhance often poor quality seating, making it more difficult for genuine products to be heard. Here’s my take on what makes an office chair ergonomic.

So what should you do to find the right chair for you?

I believe there are 5 key features you have to have on an office chair if you insist on these it will narrow the choice down considerably.

Unless you’re an occasional user $100 chairs aren’t the answer, at this price there are just too many components which will be a compromise on quality to keep the cost down, you need to be starting around the $350 level and even then you may not get all the features you need.

Sites like Amazon.com and the better online seating stores have user reviews and this is a great way to gauge an idea of how good something is, however remember office seating is a very personal choice so what may be great for someone else may not work as well for you. For this reason it’s best to choose a site with a rock solid 30 day return policy, this way you get a good opportunity to really test it out to see if it’s right for you.

Lastly, you could always take a look at my office chair reviews section which has a quick summary with links to the full reviews of some of the better quality chairs available.

Thanksgiving is almost upon us and it won’t be long before it has come and gone. Soon you will be enjoying a Turkey feast and maybe eating a bit more than you should before curling up in front of the TV.

Quite possibly your mind will wander and start thinking about Black Friday shopping and the weekend ahead turning to thoughts about the presents you could buy for your loved ones and what you would like to receive from them.

All too soon it will be back to work and for many that is when the other Turkey in their life may rear its ugly head.

I’m talking about the humble office chair where many of us spend literally nearly half our lives sitting, – it doesn’t fall far short of the amount of time we spend sleeping in our beds.

And there’s the odd thing, most of us will happily spend good money on a comfortable bed and yet when it comes to office chairs we baulk at spending serious money on one. Strange.

Sitting day in day out inevitably takes its toll on our bodies and for people who don’t have a proper ergonomic office chair results in back pain, posture problems and distracting discomfort.

Cheap chairs are built around one thing – price, consequently the components used on them will always be a compromise, things like low quality foam which soon goes as flat as a pancake. They simply aren’t capable of providing users with the correct level of support and comfort for any length of time, with the inevitable result that back ache quickly sets off.

As the years roll on the problem simply gets worse and often results in chronic conditions needing expensive services from a good chiropractor or back specialist.

So why not invest in a proper ergonomic office chair this Thanksgiving? It may well be the best investment for you or a loved one’s comfort and support when spending those long hours slaving away at the computer.

Sure it’s a fair initial outlay and yet when you appreciate it will likely last for at least 10 years or more the lucky recipient will thank you many times, it will be one present they or you will really appreciate and won’t easily forget.

First, a word of caution don’t rush out to your local office supply store thinking you will find what you need because they have got more Turkeys than you can shake a stick at, seriously.

Unless you are fortunate enough to have a true office seating specialist nearby the best way to get a good office chair is from an internet specialist. However it needs careful planning we’ve all seen those sites with pages showing hundreds of chairs, makes the eyes glaze over how do you know which one to pick?

The answer is by being selective, you see most chairs don’t have the essential features needed and so can be eliminated straight away. Here is an article explaining the 5 must have features for a quality office chair.

To make things simpler in sifting turkey chairs from the real McCoy I will be adding several more Blog posts discussing suitable models and manufacturers worth looking at to steer you in the right direction. Watch out for the first of these tomorrow.

In the previous post I discussed why people who work serious hours from a home office need to invest in a good office chair. It’s time to decide on how much to spend on your new chair to get the right answer for your needs.

The price of office chairs varies enormously from as little as $30 up to $3000 and more, realistically it’s unlikely you will get a chair with the right features and functions for less than $400.

How much! Well I did stress it was an investment didn’t I?

You probably need to budget between $400 and $800 to make sure you get a good quality ergonomic office chair which will serve you for many years after you have got over the cost.

This may mean saving some of your hard earned cash so you can afford the right chair. The worst thing you can do is decide you can’t afford the cost and go out and buy another sub $100 chair because the aches, pains and discomfort you experience from it will quickly have you regretting your purchase.

So, unless your existing chair is falling apart, suffer it for a little while longer until you can save the money to buy the right one.

I’ll continue this article in my next post by looking at what you need to insist on for that new office chair.

Knoll has recently released an excellent new workplace research report – “The Future of Ergonomic Office Seating” by Dr Tim Springer of Hero Inc (Human Environmental Research Organization, Inc).

In the report the author makes some key points about office seating pointing out some office chairs are quite complex and users need to be trained in how to use them correctly. He also shows that research into sitting tends to focus on a limited field of activities and often relies on old or limited data.

The report goes on to look into what an office chair should be capable of, covering things like:

• Supporting the body and its activity
• Promoting movement
• Enabling improved performance
• Ease of use
• Not be harmful

Next it looks at the future of ergonomic office seating, how the work environment has changed and how designers and seating manufacturers need to always be looking for new materials and ideas as well as using eco friendly materials if at all possible.

Here’s where The Future of Ergonomic Office Seating Report can be downloaded. It raises many interesting points about what really matters in office seat design.

When you work at or use a computer for long periods using the wrong type of chair is not a good idea.

I frequently see comments on social media sites where people complain about their back and legs killing them and admitting they are working in a dining room chair or on a sofa.

These types of seat are just plain bad news for working at a computer for extended periods of time and here’s why.

Take dining room chairs, they may keep you upright however they also keep you fixed and rigid and this is very bad news for your posture and back as aches and pains will soon set in.

Also as the chair is likely 4 legged it won’t swivel when you do, so you’ll be under strain as you twist from side to side.

Sofas are probably even worse for working at your computer, typically a laptop. The soft spongy cushions on the average sofa will soon have you slumping and rounding your back opening up your spine and discs which is not good at all.

So, if you are working regularly at a computer in your home office you need to get a proper ergonomic office chair designed for the job, here are the key features you need to insist on when making a choice.

Here’s a quick check list of 7 things frequently found on junky cheap office chairs, you’ve got to be really unlucky to suffer all 7 of them.

If you’ve got 3 or more then you ought to think seriously about replacing your chair with something better because it’s doing you no favors.

This list isn’t exhaustive, these are just some of the commonest problems.

1. Fixed arms – never seem to be where you want them especially the sort with a great curve in them, like we’ve all got curved forearms haven’t we?

2. Poor back height adjuster – a piece of oval steel on the back plugs into a hole in the back of the seat mechanism. It’s held in place with a single screw knob which just can’t seem to resist working loose all the time. And to hide this piece of non-engineering it maybe has the luxury of a length of concertina black plastic which always manages to ride up and expose the tube it’s supposed to hide.

3. Cheap seat foams – do you find after a short while of sitting back pain and discomfort sets in and it feels like the foam disappeared? Maybe it’s totally flat anyway, give away sign is chair fabric that’s all loose and baggy like clothing someone wore before they dieted.

4. Seat doesn’t tilt – let’s you sit at any angle as long as it’s 90 degrees and after a day sitting like this your body will be aching all over and thinking it’s morphed into a set square.

5. Chair has no tension adjustment – maybe you got lucky and are the same weight the manufacturer made the chair to suit. Chances are though it’s not like this for you, if you’re light built your chair will always dictate to you how you sit in it, you’ll always be fighting it. If you’re well built you may well experience being bounced all over the place because you’re stronger than the chair’s mechanism. Neither scenario is good, you just be comfortable or productive.

6. Seat doesn’t adjust to your leg length – this is still a feature that is the exception rather than the rule on office chairs, 80% don’t have it and yet it’s key to achieving proper seating comfort. Look around any office you’ll see the sufferers, short legged people perched on the seat edge because it’s way too deep. Long legged people sat back in their chair and still their legs overhang the chair edge by a mile.
Are you suffering discomfort as a result of this missing adjustment?

7. Adjustment levers are loose and imprecise – do the adjustment levers on your chair slosh around, are they really awkward to operate and feel like you’re stirring a cake mix? This is a common problem on cheap office chairs caused by poor design and low quality steel allowing excessive wear to build up in the moving parts.

Conclusion

So there you have it 7 tell tale signs which define junky office chairs. If your chair fails inspection on 3 or more of them, chances are you’re pretty fed up with it anyway, so maybe it’s time to look for a quality ergonomic office chair. Here’s a summary of the reviews of some quality office chairs worth looking at.

What are your pet office chair hates?

It’s been nearly 6 months since details of Herman Miller’s new Embody chair first started to appear and now the wait is over as it has finally been launched.

Embody is certainly Miller’s most radical new seating product since the Aeron and incorporates a number of innovative new design features.

There’s the Backform support system designed to mimic every movement of your spine resulting in proper back support without uncomfortable frame components digging into your body.

Or the seat which incorporates 3 individual springing layers in turn upholstered in a completely new breathable fabric for great support and comfort on the hottest days.

Here’s where you can find an overview review of the Embody chair.

I’ve just added a review of the HÅG H05 range to the reviews section.

I first sat in an H05 13 years ago, it tends to get overlooked yet it’s still a great office chair and has more than stood the test of time.

It’s very easy to adjust there is only 1 knob and 1 lever and it will fit you whether your small or tall built. Here’s where you can find the review.

I’d like to start this post by asking a question.
Would you buy a Pentium 1 computer running Windows 95 with a 15 inch vga monitor as a business tool? Highly unlikely, nor would anyone in their right mind either.

And yet it’s amazing how many people will do precisely this as they either continue to suffer the woeful inadequacy of their present office chair or eventually concede it’s got to go. They do no more than go out and waste $75 on some perch on wheels in a close out sale misleadingly described by the seller as an ergonomic office chair.

Things are going to be tough in business in 2009 and it’s likely that we’ll all be busier as a result. Those doing badly will have to work much harder to keep their head above water and those who continue to do well will likely be working harder too because of all the additional work they land as others fall by the wayside.

So, it becomes more important than ever to make sure you look after yourself at work.

An office chair really needs to be seen as an investment, an investment in you and your health for the long term.

And now I’m going to upset you a bit more because it’s time for another question.

How much should you be looking to spend on an office chair to get something which will truly be of benefit to you and last you for many years?

Well the answer isn’t $200, it’s at least $400 minimum and upwards, sorry that’s reality, OK you might be lucky and be the perfect size and weight for something a bit cheaper, however don’t count on it.

And for those of you between 20 and 30 maybe it doesn’t seem such a big deal, you could probably sit on splinter ridden tea chest all day and feel no side affects. However, I can assure you as the years go by the aches and pains will increase and you’ll wish you had done something about it earlier.

No it doesn’t mean we’ve all got to buy Aerons, there are plenty of quality ergonomic office chairs which will serve you just as well and cost a lot less too.

So what’s the answer? Well begin by reading which essential features you must insist on for your office chair. Next, here’s a quick summary of reviews of some quality office seats.

Although it best to try before you buy, 5 minutes sitting pulling levers in a display chair in the local store won’t hack it, you won’t actually know if it’s right for you until you’ve sat in it for at least a couple of days.

You may be lucky and have a specialist retailer nearby who is prepared to loan you a chair to try and that’s great if you can find one.

Your other option then is to buy online and any genuine online store will have a 30 day return policy, giving you plenty of time to make sure the chair is right for you. True, you’ll likely have to pay return freight if you send it back, so make sure it’s reasonable before you commit to buy.

And if funds are really tight and you can’t afford to buy the chair you need, don’t go and blow it on another $100 junk chair. Instead, save a little each month until you can afford the right chair you’ll be glad you did.

So, if you’ve got a sub-standard office chair causing you pain and discomfort and impeding your productivity maybe this is the time to take action and make that change – your choice.

Embody™, Herman Miller’s new state of the art ergonomic office chair made its inaugural appearance at Orgatec 2008 in Cologne Germany yesterday.

First impressions are the design is radically different from other office chairs, not that this is a surprise as Miller have always been at the forefront of office seating innovation.

The mighty Aeron has been around for 14 years now so I suppose we were due for something new.

With a list price around $1500 there probably won’t be a stampede from folks wanting to get one, although a discounted price around the $1000 mark is probably nearer what you’ll end up paying.

The Embody™ looks a like a class act and I’ll be adding a full review shortly.