A1 Office Furniture Guide: How to buy a desk? - Furniture shopping guide
A desk, a computer desk, an office desk, a gaming desk are effectively the same type of furniture. Their main goal is to provide space for prolonged work, be it computer or paper work. What makes a good desk and how to choose the right one? In this post we will try to answer this question.
Size
Each office or room are different, however we usually want to have as much space available for work as possible. Common thing found on today’s desks are mouse, keyboard, monitor and phone. For the monitors, there is a space-saving trick in the form of monitor arms, which can save quite a lot of desktop area.
Since desktops are 2 dimensional spaces, the properties they have are width and depth. There is a wide range of widths to choose from, however depth-wise there is much less choice. Industry standard desk depths are 600mm or 800mm. For home office desk we would probably suggest the smaller depth, however the 800mm desks offer fully comfortable workspace you would want for your everyday work. The amount of workspace is an important factor, because it not only affects the productivity, but also it influences the strain on your body.
Height
Standard heights are around 700mm and this is just right for most users. There are exceptions however. Tall people should have taller desks to avoid slouching. Unfortunately the industry caters to the largest group, which is the average height, and that is a shared average between men and women. For people with longer bodies the best solution so far are the height adjustable desks. These are more expensive than standard desks, but they usually offer additional benefit of allowing standing work, which is becoming a new trend.
Colour
There is a range of standard colours available. The most common wooden finishes are beech, oak, walnut and maple. These are the most traditional office furniture finishes, however for someone looking for more modern office impression, we would suggest looking at white desks. Some say, white is the new black, however in office furniture, it is white that has been the black all along. White office furniture can have tremendous impact on how the office looks and feels.
