To help guide you through the selection process, we’ve purchased and evaluated 16 office chairs, ranging in price from $90 to $2,340. The list includes models from Amazon, Branch, Herman Miller, Ikea, Staples, and Steelcase. While all are billed as ergonomic, that leaves lots of room for interpretation, our testing reveals.
“When you see a chair branded as ergonomic, you can’t put a lot of stock in that,” says Paul Ritchey, doctor of public health and certified professional ergonomist (CPE), who oversees office chair testing for Consumer Reports. “What you should be looking for is adjustability, because one hallmark of ergonomics is understanding that one size does not fit all.”
According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, good ergonomic design can help reduce the number and severity of work-related musculoskeletal disorders caused by varied and repeated stress on muscles, nerves, blood vessels, ligaments, and tendons.
In our testing, we rate office chairs on not only ergonomic design (how well they comply with standards and best practices), but also comfort, ease of use, and ease of assembly. We give more weight to the ergonomic design scores than ease of assembly for one simple reason: While building a chair can be a hassle, you only have to do it once.
The comfort scores come from a panel of three people with various body types, who reviewed each chair after sitting in it for 90 to 120 minutes in a typical work setting. Ease of use considers things like how simple it is to adjust the chair’s controls while seated, how well the controls are labeled, and how clearly the model’s features are explained in manuals and other documentation from the manufacturer.
Before getting to our full impressions, it’s helpful to explain how to properly sit in a chair. That may sound strange—who doesn’t know how to sit in a chair?—but even a top-rated model will offer little benefit to you if you don’t know how to use it.
