Office designing and planning for knowledge workers

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.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.F.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Art and Design

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2011

Author dc:creator

• Liao, Yi

Contributors dc:contributor

• Reeder, Kevin
• Gunji-Ballsrud, Jennifer
• Hemingway, Erik M.

• office
• knowledge work
• communication
• user behavior
• design guideline

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2011 Yi Liao

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/26110

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/26110