Notes on Choosing an Office Chair
I spent an unreasonable amount of time researching office chairs recently. What follows is a summary of what I learned, mostly for my own reference, but possibly useful to someone else who works from home and sits for long stretches. I don't claim any ergonomic expertise. I'm just a person who sits in a chair most of the day and eventually decided that the cheap one I'd been using for years was contributing to some persistent back and shoulder discomfort.
The chair I'd been using was a basic task chair from a big box office supply store. I bought it probably six or seven years ago. It had a mesh back, a lightly padded fabric seat, basic pneumatic height adjustment, and not much else. No adjustable armrests, no lumbar support to speak of, no seat depth adjustment. For the first few years it was fine, or at least I didn't notice problems. But gradually I started getting stiffness in my lower back by mid-afternoon, and my shoulders would creep up toward my ears in a way that suggested the armrest height wasn't right. I tried adding a lumbar pillow, which helped somewhat, but it kept sliding out of position.
So I started researching. The office chair market, it turns out, is vast and confusing. Prices range from under a hundred dollars to well over a thousand, and the relationship between price and quality is not always straightforward. I spent a lot of time reading reviews, watching comparison videos, visiting a couple of office furniture showrooms, and sitting in various chairs at a local coworking space that happened to have several different models.
The first major decision is the general category. There are mesh chairs, where both the back and sometimes the seat are made of a stretched fabric mesh over a frame. There are traditional padded chairs with foam cushions and upholstery. There are hybrid designs with a mesh back and a padded seat. And there are more specialized options like kneeling chairs, saddle chairs, and active sitting chairs with a wobble base, though I didn't seriously consider those.
Mesh chairs have become very popular in the mid-to-high range of the market, largely because of the influence of the Herman Miller Aeron, which has been a standard in offices for decades. The appeal of mesh is breathability — you don't get the heat buildup that happens with foam and fabric, which matters if you sit for hours. The downside is that mesh can feel firm to some people, and cheaper mesh chairs sometimes use material that stretches out over time and loses support. The frame design matters a lot because the mesh itself is just conforming to whatever shape the frame provides.
I looked seriously at several well-known models. The Herman Miller Aeron is the obvious starting point. It's a fully mesh chair with excellent adjustability — tilt tension, tilt limiter, adjustable lumbar pad (called PostureFit), height-adjustable arms that also pivot, and forward tilt. It comes in three sizes, which is unusual and appreciated. I sat in one at a showroom and it was immediately comfortable in a firm, supportive way. The build quality is excellent. The price, however, is significant. A new Aeron runs well over a thousand dollars, which gave me pause. Used Aerons are widely available from office liquidators at much lower prices, and I considered that route, but I was uncertain about the condition and remaining lifespan of used units.
The Herman Miller Embody was also on my list. It takes a different approach — no traditional lumbar support, but instead a flexible backrest with a matrix of small supports that distribute pressure evenly. The seat is narrow and the back is tall. I found it comfortable but felt slightly unstable when I leaned to the side, as if the back was almost too flexible for my preference.
The Steelcase Leap was the other high-end option I tested. It's a padded chair, not mesh, with a flexible backrest that bends at the top and bottom independently. The seat has an adjustable depth slider, which I found very useful given that my legs are on the longer side. The armrests are highly adjustable — height, width, depth, and pivot. The foam is firm but not hard. I sat in one for about forty-five minutes at the showroom and found it very comfortable throughout. The Steelcase Gesture is a similar price point with even more arm adjustability. I tested it briefly but didn't find it meaningfully better than the Leap for my purposes.
Below the premium tier, I looked at several mid-range options. The HON Ignition 2.0 is a mesh-back, padded-seat chair that gets consistently good reviews for its price range. I sat in one and found it perfectly adequate, though the lumbar support felt less precise than the higher-end chairs. The Autonomous ErgoChair was another option at a similar price point. It looked fine on paper but felt a bit wobbly in person, and the build quality of the adjustment mechanisms didn't inspire confidence for long-term durability.
I also considered some budget options briefly. The Ikea Markus is often recommended as a good basic chair with a tall mesh back, but the lack of adjustability would have bothered me. A few of the very inexpensive options on Amazon looked functional but clearly built to a price — thin padding, limited adjustments, and the kind of gas cylinder that might give out after a year or two.
After all of this, I bought a Steelcase Leap. I found a certified refurbished one from an authorized dealer at a meaningful discount from the new price. It arrived in good condition with new foam, new fabric, and a warranty. I've been using it for a while now and the back discomfort has improved noticeably. The seat depth adjustment makes a bigger difference than I would have expected. The armrests are set to a height that lets my shoulders relax, which has helped with the tension I was carrying there.
A few general observations from the process. First, sitting in a chair for five minutes at a store tells you much less than you'd think. The chairs that feel most immediately comfortable aren't always the ones that hold up over an eight-hour day. If you can borrow or trial a chair for a week, do that. Second, adjustability matters more than any single feature. A highly adjustable chair can be dialed in to fit your body; a fixed chair either fits you or it doesn't. Third, the used and refurbished market for high-end office chairs is substantial and worth exploring. These chairs are built to last fifteen or twenty years, and a five-year-old example with new upholstery has a lot of life left.
I don't think there's a single best office chair. Bodies vary. Preferences vary. But I do think spending some time on the decision is worthwhile if you sit for a living. The difference between a chair that fits and one that doesn't accumulates quietly over months and years. By the time you notice the problem, you've been compensating with your posture for a long time. I wish I'd done this sooner, frankly.
— Kevin V.