Throughout history, chairs have served many purposes: thrones to convey power, rockers to soothe and loungers to relax. But only recently have they been made to support how the body ought to sit. Ergonomics – a scientific discipline concerned with optimising the way humans interact with objects, environments and systems – has led to an industry of chairs that look less like chairs and more like high-performance machines that are souped up with contoured supports, technical fabrics and a fleet of knobs. How exactly did we get here?
Ergonomic principles have been around for millennia, but ergonomics – which translates to the “laws of work” – emerged during the industrial revolution. Businesses looked for ways to increase productivity, so engineers studied how different tools or processes could improve efficiency. Meanwhile, posture became a moral and medical obsession. Doctors theorised about good sitting hygiene and designed furniture that would nudge people into “proper” position, meaning sitting up straight and still. As David Yosifon and Peter N. Sterns wrote in a history of posture published in the American Historical Review, these ideas better reflected middle class etiquette than proven facts. However, seating from this era anticipated some of the elements we would recognise in ergonomic chairs today like lumbar supports, swivel seats and castors.
But it wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that ergonomics became a profession and scientific discipline. The timing coincided with the rapid development of sophisticated machinery and technology during World War II. Engineers recognised that they would have to take into account “human factors” like psychology and physiology when they made things. One influential case involved the B-17 bomber, which experienced pilots crashed at a higher rate than other planes. An Air Force psychologist realised that the problem was because different landing controls looked too similar – a case of “designer error”. Once the knobs were redesigned, the crash rate declined.
Most of us will never fly a fighter plane, but we encounter ergonomic design everywhere: a vegetable peeler with a comfortable grip, scissors that nestle into our palm or an office chair pulled up to a desk.
Sketch demonstrating ankle-tilt pivot and body-type ranges (Bill Stumpf, 1990).
Ergonomic design mainstreamed thanks to Henry Dreyfuss, the industrial designer of the round Honeywell thermostat. In his pathbreaking 1955 book Designing for People, Dreyfuss explained that it was his job to make humans and their environments more compatible. In order to do this, he frequently consulted with doctors and medical experts on his projects. He also created reference manuals that prescribed ideal measurements for objects and environments based on the average size of men and women, which the design industry widely adopted.
As medical research and imaging became more advanced, ergonomic design did too. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, doctors gained a deeper understanding of biomechanics and spinal anatomy. They also developed comfort rating methods that referenced objective data – such as lumbar disc pressure and muscle activity – instead of personal opinion. Designer Bill Stumpf became interested in what this could mean for office furniture. He spent 10 years studying the effects of sitting on the human body, everything from fatigue to cognition to back pain. Stumpf argued that creativity could be improved if a physical discomfort didn't interrupt a person’s focus and if poor posture didn’t impede blood circulation.
Figure drawings for patents filed for Aeron Chair in June 1992, with inventors listed as William Stumpf, Rodney C. Schoenfelder, Donald Chadwick and Carolyn Keller.
This research led Stumpf to develop his own 10-point comfort criteria, which he demonstrated in the Ergon Chair. Released in 1976 by Herman Miller, it had a contoured, moulded foam seat that supported the lumbar and sacral regions of the spine, a tilt mechanism and a height-adjustable seat, backrest and armrests. A core idea of the Ergon, as Stumpf wrote in 1975, was to accommodate “postural needs” and “postural whims” and so the related advertising emphasised all the ways someone could sit in it. One campaign featured time-lapse photos of a businessman at his desk throughout a work day and showed him reclining while taking a phone call, leaning back in deep thought while cross-legged and hoisting his thigh over the armrest while reading a report.
An enduring dilemma with ergonomic furniture is that it’s mass produced but no two bodies are the same.
When designing the Ergon, Stumpf didn't centre the average body – a marked difference between his approach and the design industry's standard advanced by Dreyfuss. This strategy also informed his next hit: the Aeron Chair, released in 1994. Designed in collaboration with Don Chadwick, the Aeron traded foam upholstery for a stretchy, breathable engineered textile that evenly distributed support and eliminated pressure points. The two originally developed this idea when prototyping a recliner meant for elderly people. Fabric suspensions changed the field, and now most furniture brands – high to low – incorporate the technology into task chairs.
Ergonomic chairs are now office mainstays and it's possible to sit in them for hours. In some ways, they have become too comfortable. Doctors warn that “sitting is the new smoking” because of the link between sedentary lifestyles and the increased risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Addressing these effects is beyond the scope of what design can do, even as new products that nudge you to move – like sit-stand chairs and seats that are intentionally uncomfortable so you can't sit in them too long – hit the market. In 1979, Peter Opsvik, the designer behind the Variable kneeling chair, wrote that “the best posture is the next one”, meaning that it’s a good idea to keep moving. In the end, the healthiest way to sit is to get up and walk around.
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