{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26110"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26110","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Office designing and planning for knowledge workers","abstract":"Traditional office design is largely concerned with human ergonomics to provide office users with the maximum comfort and efficiency. As office automation developed in the late 20th century, the major tasks in offices shifted from manual work to knowledge work, which required more concentration and communication than ever before. Responding to this trend, user behavior studies became more emphasized in the office design process – a successful office design should be a holistic system consisting of users, furniture, and space. In this paper, the history and trends of office design are investigated. Interviews with knowledge workers from various industries were conducted to uncover how they work in and with their work environment. Through discussions with the interviewees, office design guidelines are revised based on the knowledge worker behavior. Office designing and planning need to facilitate the information and knowledge flow in the workplace. Appropriate flexibility should be achieved so that the workers can work efficiently in either concentration mode or communication mode as they need. At the end of the research, an office desk design is presented to serve as an example of how a product can reflect and address the needs of current day workspaces.","abstract_html":"Traditional office design is largely concerned with human ergonomics to provide office users with the maximum comfort and efficiency. As office automation developed in the late 20th century, the major tasks in offices shifted from manual work to knowledge work, which required more concentration and communication than ever before. Responding to this trend, user behavior studies became more emphasized in the office design process – a successful office design should be a holistic system consisting of users, furniture, and space. In this paper, the history and trends of office design are investigated. Interviews with knowledge workers from various industries were conducted to uncover how they work in and with their work environment. Through discussions with the interviewees, office design guidelines are revised based on the knowledge worker behavior. Office designing and planning need to facilitate the information and knowledge flow in the workplace. Appropriate flexibility should be achieved so that the workers can work efficiently in either concentration mode or communication mode as they need. At the end of the research, an office desk design is presented to serve as an example of how a product can reflect and address the needs of current day workspaces.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Liao, Yi"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.F.A.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Art and Design","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Reeder, Kevin","Gunji-Ballsrud, Jennifer","Hemingway, Erik M."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-08-25T22:14:31Z","date_published":"2011-08-25T22:14:31Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:26Z","subjects":["office","knowledge work","communication","user behavior","design guideline"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Yi Liao"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26110","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Reeder, Kevin","Gunji-Ballsrud, Jennifer","Hemingway, Erik M."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Liao, Yi"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-08-25T22:14:31Z","2011-08"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Art and Design"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.F.A."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["office","knowledge work","communication","user behavior","design guideline"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Yi Liao"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26110"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Traditional office design is largely concerned with human ergonomics to provide office users with the maximum comfort and efficiency. 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