Research – Reminders motivate to use height adjustable desks

A whitepaper conducted by a Danish behavioural design agency shows, that reminders stimulate users of adjustable office desk to change posture more often – thereby getting more out of their desk.

A Danish behavioural design agency has studied how users of height adjustable office desks use their desks and what motivates users to use it optimally. Many companies around the world provide their office workers with height adjustable desks. However, when it comes to the actual usage of the desks, the “human factor” plays in. People commonly just forget or lack motivation to get the full amount of benefits of their height adjustable desk.

LINAK asked the Danish behavioural design agency, KL.7, to find out how users generally use height adjustable desks and what could motivate them to use their desks optimally. The research was conducted in three workplaces, investigating the behaviour of 65 persons in total.

Results
In short, the pilot study shows that reminders work. By classifying the examined users by their average usage of their height adjustable desks, the research concluded:
“Non-users” (office workers who usually do not use their desk) had a rise of 12.3 min/day in average.
“Light users” (office workers who only make little use of their desk) increased their average standing time by 43 min (from 36.3 min/day to 78.9 min/day). This corresponds to a 117% increase.
Learn more You can read the full whitepaper here (21 pages): “Making office workers healthier”
Or download a compact version of the whitepaper here (2 pages): “Making office workers healthier”