What are the best ergonomic and accessibility practices for workplace design?

1 Assess your needs

Before you start designing your workplace, you need to assess your needs and goals. What are the tasks and activities that you and your team perform? What are the physical and mental demands of your work? What are the potential hazards and risks? How can you optimize your workflow and collaboration? How can you support the well-being and diversity of your employees? These questions can help you identify the ergonomic and accessibility requirements and challenges of your workplace.

2 Choose the right furniture and equipment

One of the most important aspects of ergonomic and accessibility design is choosing the right furniture and equipment for your workplace. You want to ensure that they are comfortable, adjustable, and suitable for your tasks and body types. For example, you can use ergonomic chairs, desks, keyboards, mice, monitors, and lighting that can be customized to your height, posture, and vision. You can also use assistive devices, such as headphones, magnifiers, or voice recognition software, that can help you overcome any sensory or cognitive impairments.

3 Arrange your space wisely

Another key factor of ergonomic and accessibility design is arranging your space wisely. You want to create a layout that maximizes your efficiency, safety, and flexibility. For example, you can organize your space into zones that reflect the different functions and moods of your work, such as focus, collaboration, relaxation, or creativity. You can also use partitions, curtains, rugs, or plants to create visual and acoustic barriers that reduce noise and distractions. You can also ensure that there is enough space and clearance for movement, circulation, and emergency exits.

4 Incorporate universal design principles

Universal design is a concept that strives to make products and environments accessible and usable for everyone, regardless of age, ability, or background. It is based on seven principles which can be used as a guide when making workplace design decisions. These principles include equitable use, flexibility in use, simplicity and intuitiveness, perceptible information, tolerance for error, low physical effort, and size and space for approach and use. By following these principles, it is possible to create a workplace that is fair and appealing to all users, easy to understand and operate with minimal hazards and errors, and with enough space and reach for all users.

5 Seek feedback and evaluation

Finally, one of the best ways to improve your ergonomic and accessibility design is to seek feedback and evaluation from your users. You can ask them about their satisfaction, comfort, performance, and suggestions for improvement. You can also use surveys, interviews, observations, or tests to measure the impact and effectiveness of your design. By doing so, you can identify any problems or gaps and make adjustments accordingly.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?