The Steelcase Gesture: Keeping Up with the Latest Work Trends
After long hours of sitting in an office chair, a lot of people experience back pains and fatigue. Back pain is said to be one of the most common causes of work absences. The main reason behind this is that most office chairs are designed to support only a single and static posture.
To answer this problem, Steelcase came up with a new chair called the Gesture. Unlike traditional office chairs, it is built to support a wide range of working postures that people often use while they are working. This review will identify the strong and weak points of the Steelcase Gesture Chair. This should help you see how this chair can meet your body’s needs and hopefully it will also help you make an informed decision when it’s time for you to buy one.
The Steelcase Gesture Chair
Released in the fall of 2013, the Gesture is one of Steelcase’s newest additions to its roster of office and desk chairs. The company has stated that the Gesture is the first chair to support one’s interactions with modern gadgets such as mobile phones, tablets, as well as laptop and desktop computers.
The features include a fully adjustable arm that can easily swivel for flexible support. There is also a flexible backrest which you can further configure with a plastic shell and then have its back wrapped with seat fabric. Like most chairs, the depth, height, and angle of the seat can also be adjusted. With its five-star caster base made from steel it can support weights of up to 300 lbs.
What’s to like?
Some chairs require you to stand or crouch to make adjustments. With the Steelcase Gesture Chair, one doesn’t have to bend over or stand up to adjust the seat. This is because the adjustment levers are very easy to find and also intuitive to operate. The arms have four movable parts that allow for a variety of adjustment options. It is cleverly designed to move in way that’s similar to the human arm which is why it can support a wide variety of positions. These are features that are quite rare even among high-end chairs.You’ll also find its new support mechanism to be quite handy since it adjusts automatically to your sitting position. It’s unique in the sense that you can’t manually adjust how the teat tilts since it will move automatically whenever you lean back. You’ll find that the chair has different lean levels that should conform to everyone’s tastes. It’s even possible to actually lean smoothly all the way back.What makes this work is the Gesture’s “synchronized system”. This system allows the seat and back to move together while supporting an individual’s leaning motions. The back is flexible enough to make the one sitting lean and stretch back farther. The moment this happens, the seat tilts as well. The chair also has a mechanism that can keep one’s feet still grounded on the floor while going through this tilting motion. The seat edge is also flexible, adding further to the chair’s capacity to make a person sit in the position that they’re comfortable in.When it comes to making you comfortable the Gesture provides an unparalleled experience. If you’re an office worker you’re basically glued to your chairs while staring into your computer screen for prolonged hours. For this reason you’ll need a comfortable chair like the Steelcase Gesture. The seat padding and soft fabric are nice to sit on and would definitely help avoid any discomfort to your back and behind. Compared to other chairs though, the width and padding of the Gesture’s armrest might not be as substantial.In terms of aesthetics, the Gesture chair has a modern style with clean and sleek lines. The chair doesn’t look bulky probably due to the absence of too much padding. It is also easily customizable with wide variety of choices when it comes to fabrics and frame finishes. This makes it very easy to match with different office and home designs. It doesn’t only fit with body posture; it has no problem fitting in with the place as well.
Addressing unique postures
With their goal to provide a new seating experience, Steelcase conducted a global posture study to understand the mechanisms by which people use their bodies in the workplace. They closely studied 2000 people from 11 countries and came up with nine new postures resulting from how these people used modern technology. The nine postures include the cocoon, the draw, the smart lean, the text, the swipe, the multi-device, the trance, the strunch, and the take in. These were mostly observed when the subjects used gadgets such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops.The Gesture chair was designed to specifically provide adequate support for these postures. This is also meant to help people to keep up with changes brought about through the use of these new technologies. As the body posture shifts from one device to another, the Gesture moves along and adapts to the shift. It’s now possible to for you to stay comfortable even if you’ve been sitting around for hours.In contrast with the good online feedbacks received for having a posture-adjustable feature, the Gesture has also been pointed to encourage bad postures. People usually tend to hold a sitting position that they’re comfortable with. It does not necessarily follow that a comfortable sitting position is good for your posture. Since the Steelcase Gesture Chair is very flexible in supporting different working postures including those that are unbalanced, it may cause a few negative effects after the long run. To avoid this it would be best to constantly shift your sitting position.
Is Price An Issue?
With all the research that went in to this chair, it’s fair to expect that it’s not going to be cheap. Although its current price is pretty steep compared to regular chairs, it is still fairly reasonable compared to other chairs in the market right now. When you take into account the comfort, flexibility, and unique seating experience it has to offer, the Gesture Chair is definitely a good investment to consider.
An office chair like Gesture is an investment that will pay for itself in the long run. Not only can you expect enhanced efficiency and productivity at work, it also provides you, the consumer, with a comfortable working experience that other chairs can only promise but never deliver.
Any Other Chairs Like It?
Is there any other chair out there that is quite like it? There are probably a couple of other chairs out there, either from Steelcase or other manufacturers that come close or even exceed the technical specifications of the Gesture.
The thing is, you’ll be hard pressed to find any other chair with close to the same or better features that is as reasonably priced as this. There’s also no other chair that’s out in the market right now that has benefited from extensive research on human posture and ergonomics like the Gesture.
A Chair that’s Designed Specifically for you
We are now living in a world of smartphones, tablets, and other modern gadgets. The fast paced advancements in modern technology bring with them corresponding impacts to the human body and how it functions. The Gesture was built to address this. It will help you move at par with these rapid shifts and to keep up with the demands of a new working environment filled with these gadgets.
Finding the right chair is hard because every person’s body is different. People’s bodies have different seating needs. There are also different ways to address these needs. Although it’s just one of possible solutions, with its functionality and how comfortable it is to use, the Gesture just might be the chair that your body needs to cope with these changes.
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