Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Item #14: The Aeron Chair












Herman Miller, Inc is the company responsible for the release of the Aeron Chair, their best selling chair ever, and a great success by many measures. The Aeron chair is featured in the permanent collection of design museums across the globe, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It has been reviewed and discussed for its design merit the world over including being written about in detail by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Blink.

I reference the story of the development of the Aeron Chair because is a wonderful example of research done well and research used well.

Let’s start with the words of Max Depree, chairman and CEO of Herman Miller, Inc:

We are a research-driven product company. We are not a market-driven company. It means that we intend, through the honest examination of our environment and our work and our problems, to meet the unmet needs of our users with problem-solving design and development. From Leadership is an Art by Max Depree.

Aeron chair co-designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick believed that millions of office workers were sitting in chairs built based on fundamentally flawed design principles, and so they set out to redesign the everyday office chair.

The research process to evaluate the viability of this new chair design for the consumer marketplace was a challenge. Test groups said they despised the Aeron Chair. They thought it was ugly, and uncomfortable.

Comfort scores from testers came in way below acceptable levels. The engineers and designers at Herman Miller knew that the chair they'd made was the most ergonomic office chair ever built in America. “It had been researched, re-researched, designed and designed again, re-drawn, fussed over, and tested to the nth degree time and again; every piece of factual and evidence-based information they had pointed to the chair as one of the most comfortable ever made. One of the most supportive ever made. Assuredly the most ergonomic ever made.”

Turns out, the testers were only getting a limited amount of time with the chair, about half a day. Soon the team at Herman Miller began to understand that this wasn't enough. The test groups were given longer periods of time with the chair and sure enough, comfort test scores came up.

And the design was considered ugly. “The Aeron chair was constructed from pellicle, a high tech mesh, as well as rigid plastics. You could see through it. Most armrests are attached to the seat of the chair, but with the Aeron they're attached to the back. Most chairs form a joint hinge between seat and back, but the Aeron has a highly engineered system that allows each plane to move independently of the other.”

No matter what they did, the Aeron Chair was only scoring an average of about 6 when it came to looks. If the company was going to release this chair, they would have to do it with the full knowledge that people thought it was ugly.

In the end, Herman Miller stood by the chair, released it and the rest is history.

So how is this evidence of research done well?


It was rigorous research that fed the design innovation that got Stumpf, Chadwick and Herman Miller the most comfortable, supportive and ergonomic office chair ever made. It was adjustment of the time period testers spent with the chair, to be more in line with actual usage realities, which got them to the comfort evaluations that they needed in order to have assurance of a functionally capable product.

And it was this research also that got them an accurate evaluation for the aesthetics of the chair. In fact, modern day reviewers have referred to the Aeron Chair as: “an ugly miracle grounded in empiricism.” “The Aeron’s true value wasn’t its texture, shape or sizing. It was a triumph for empiricism over aestheticism, proof that beauty is illusory in the case of tools. Because that’s what a work chair is: a tool to keep you comfortable, safe and supported – not seduced.” “The Aeron doesn’t have a pretty face, but like an intelligent mind it projects beauty,” says Don Chadwick, co-designer of the Aeron chair.

And how is this evidence of research used well?

Herman Miller knew when to let vision guide a decision. It didn’t allow the tester ratings with regard to the subjective concept of aesthetic appeal guide its decision to release the chair. It trusted the vision of proven designers and was rewarded by making history.

So, what happened here?

Well, consumer behaviour is not predictable. Consumers buy ugly stuff all the time; think PT Cruiser, or The Ugly Doll. What research can never dictate, what vision must decide, is how people might behave. This chair was a success because a specific group of people was drawn to it and by lending their discerning approval influenced many more in order to make it a blockbuster.

Sources: Creative Review magazine, April 2008, The Aeron Chair by Daniel West; Leadership is an Art by Max Depree; Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

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