Forget About Aesthetics in Chair Design: Ergonomics Should Provide the Basis for Comfort

Helander and deLooze have proposed a model of seated comfort in which comfort and discomfort are conceptually separate. They argue that ergonomic chairs tend to be overdesigned with insufficient attention paid to aesthetics. This argument is critiqued on both methodological and conceptual grounds. The methodological critique is based on psychometric criteria. The conceptual critique is based on the need for an integrated (ecological) approach in which work context and user characteristics are explicitly considered. An alternative model for an ecological ergonomics is presented.

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