Office chair design has improved in leaps and bounds in the past 20 years, and yet there are still a huge amount of task chairs being made today built around the same old technology that existed 30 years ago.

Why is this? A lot of it has to do with the cost of tooling to make new components. It just costs a lot of money to create a new chair from the ground up.

It’s far easier to take what already exists and just tweak its appearance a little, rather like an automobile design where cars get facelifts every couple of years to prolong the life of a model.

Exactly the same thing happens with chairs. The basic guts of the thing, the bits you don’t see, stay the same. However, by reshaping the seat and back and maybe changing the base design, it’s possible to make the old appear new.

Fortunately, some companies are prepared to start with a blank sheet of paper and to do something radically different. Not surprising these tend to be the bigger players in the market who have the necessary resources and have a genuine desire to produce a substantially different and innovative chair.

Typically these manufacturers will do extensive market research into what problems users face and then go about creating a solution.

One of the big trends in recent years has been the launch of much simpler chairs, where the user just adjusts the height and maybe a couple of other things.

The chair has an inbuilt ability to anticipate what the user is doing by sensing their body movements as it self-adjusts and supports the user comfortably during the working day.

This is largely a good thing, as the majority of people don’t want to fiddle with loads of levers and buttons. Examples of these types of chairs include the HÅG Futu, Knoll’s Generation, and HumanScale’s Freedom and Liberty chairs.

Other manufacturers like Herman Miller and Steelcase prefer to create new models based on new technology and yet still let the user have lots of control over the settings.

Modern products like the Embody from Herman Miller, and the Think and Leap from Steelcase allow more user adjustment.

The one big downside with all of these new innovations comes down to cost. All that expensive design and tooling has to be paid for and as a result, chairs like these tend to start around the $500 mark.

This is why old, outdated seat design continues to be commonplace. Most of the components used in old-style seating can simply be bought off the shelf from component manufacturers who are geared up to turn out the various mechanisms and parts cheaply and quickly.

This results in a gulf in prices between old style models and newer ground breaking chairs, and once you try out one of these new breed of chairs and discover how superior they are, you will truly understand why they leave the same-old, same-old in the dust.

Today in the second of my replace the office chair turkey posts it’s the turn of Michigan giant Steelcase who has been making quality office chairs for decades.

It has literally hundreds of different model variants to choose from and so let’s get a bit selective and look at a few of the most popular ones.

As the world’s largest office furniture manufacturer Steelcase does a lot of research when developing new products. Typical of this is the Leap® chair which was 4 years in development and the subject of a study over an extended time period resulting in an increase in productivity of 17.80% in one organization. So you can be sure of getting you work done more efficiently and with greater comfort.

Here are links to check out reviews of some of its most popular models.

• Leap®
• Think®
• Amia™

On Monday I’ll have the other US giant Herman Miller in the frame, so be sure to check back then.

For some reason many people put hardly any thought or effort when buying a new office chair, their blinkered approach too often comes down to one thing – price.

They look for the cheapest chair they can lay their hands on, regardless of its quality and fitness for purpose.

Of course price is important we all want to save spending unnecessarily, however looking at the price should be the final part of the process, it’s far more important to get the specification right first, once this has been established then price can be taken into account.

Here are some key questions you need answering before you can decide on the best chair for you.

• How much time do you spend in an office chair daily?
• What sort of work do you do in it?
• Do you suffer any back pain and discomfort presently?
• Do you like a firm or a well padded seat?
• Do you perspire a lot on hot days?
• Are you above or below average height/weight/build?

Your answers to these questions will help you to pinpoint the right sort of chair for you. For instance if you spend 8 – 10 hours a day in a chair you really need to buy a well built chair with a good guarantee period – 5 years minimum. If you don’t you will be regretting your decision very quickly.

Where you do a lot of interactive work like typing, a chair with great support will surely be high on your shortlist of possibilities.

The same can be said if you suffer back pain and discomfort, you have to select a chair with good back support.

If you are the sort of person who prefers a well padded seat, chances are you will find chairs like the Aeron a challenge due to the firm seating position and something like a Steelcase Leap may be better. On the other hand if you are given to sweating a lot in hot weather an Aeron could very well make an excellent choice due to its open mesh upholstery as it allows good air circulation.

Most chairs are made to fit the average person whatever that might mean, those who are below or above average height will need to take more care with their selection. Neutral Posture seating has some excellent solutions tailored for people who are below or above average height and or weight.

A chair designed for a tall person would be disastrous for a small framed person just as a chair intended for a petite person would be completely unsuitable for a large framed user, regardless of how stylish or sexy the chair looks.

So, spend time weighing up the above points and how they may affect you. This article discusses the key components on an office chair you need to assess and will help you to evaluate the important things you need.

In this final post on choosing a home office chair, it’s time to look at what you need to be sure the new office chair you are about to choose includes as a core set of features and functions.

There are 5 functions you need to insist on if you are looking to get maximum comfort when selecting the best possible chair for your needs and these are:

• Seat Depth Adjustment giving optimal leg comfort
• Adjustable back height to allow the lower back to be correctly supported
• Arm Height Adjustment for easy movement and to minimize the risk of RSI
• Seat Height Adjustment to suit you body height and weight
• Adjustable Tilt Tension allows personal adjustment for individual body weight

The absence of any of these features can often result in pain and discomfort for different parts of you body. This is discussed in detail in a free pdf report 5 Secret Insights for Solving Office Chair Aches, Pains and Discomfort available for download here.

Also Steelcase has some useful tips for the Home Office with related topics you may not have considered.

Back in the day, IBM made a lot of sales to big corporations because it was perceived as a safe bet, it was the biggest and made quality products. The underlying rationale of many buyers was nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

And I’m the first to admit I still use an IBM clicky keyboard, date of manufacture 19 May 1993, still looks like new , weighs 2 kgs and it’s built like a tank.

In many respects the same logic is true in office chairs Herman Miller’s Aeron, is if you like the IBM of office seating. It’s probably the best known office chair of all time and with over a 1,000,000 in use worldwide it’s also likely sold more than any other model too.

For all that, good as the Aeron is, it’s not necessarily the best chair ever, but it’s certainly the most successful.

In the quality end of the chair market there is a number of chairs which are its equal and some would argue are better.

Some like Steelcase’s Leap and Think or Humanscale’s Freedom chair are quite well known, others like HÅG’s Capisco and its excellent recently introduced Futu model are less well known.

And while it’s true to say you probably wouldn’t go wrong buying an Aeron, it’s also fair to say there are a lot of very good quality alternatives many will overlook because the makers lack the big budget marketing machines to make them better known.

I would encourage anyone looking to replace their chair to by all means look at the Aeron as well as giving consideration to some of these models as they could even become tomorrow’s stars.

On the face of it some office chairs appear incredibly expensive and you may find yourself asking how they can possibly charge so much for an office seat.

At one end of the spectrum you’ve got the cheap chair where the maker just goes out and buys some off the shelf, mass produced stock components produced for the lowest price by some far eastern component producer. All this creates in reality is just another clone chair – investment research time and cost, pretty much nil.

At the other end of the spectrum is the major manufacturer striving to produce something different, innovative and hopefully ground breaking.

As an example Steelcase spent 4 years developing, researching and testing the Leap® chair making sure the chair was truly different to other products. This involved hundreds of testers and together with all the tooling costs for the new components represented a huge financial outlay.

It’s all too easy to overlook these behind the scenes costs when making a snap value judgement.

Ultimately the proof is in the finished chair and it’s only when you sit in some of the better products you really appreciate just how much better they are and how comfortably they support you.

As I’ve frequently stated in the past when you spend long hours working in an office chair you need to see it as a tool, an investment in your health and productivity, instead of adopting a limited life mentality.

Sometimes it can be tough to see it like this, however once you bite the bullet and invest in a quality office chair you’ll be really glad you did.

Steelcase is running a special sale knocking a further 10% off its already discounted prices on all its products until October 12th.

You can find out more here.

For further details on popular Steelcase chairs here are the links to the reviews of the Amia™, Think® and Leap® models.

I’ve just added a new review of the Steelcase Think® chair.

Steelcase has been quietly adding some great ergonomic office chairs to its seating range over the last few years and the Think® is a worthy addition.