Which is your preferred workspace system of the following?

#81

You are right indeed that the design is complicated, or overcomplicated in some areas. This is a design exercise for my Product Design degree however, so it has to be balanced between both practicality and design. While I try to keep everything in mind when working on this workspace it is important to understand that ultimately the most important thing is if the (external) examiners consider it worthy for a degree. This is dependent on both functional design, but also visual design :slight_smile: The visual aspect was the reason why I overhauled the old design in the first place.

This workspace for me is somewhat in between a functional workspace, and a concept workspace. There are no plans to physically produce it as of yet, so I am not limited by cost, however I tried to keep them in mind during the design phase.

Glad you like the design though, that is a good thing for me :slight_smile: And by all means do be honest, everyone.

Cobra 6

#82

Here is an updated version with new drawer design. The drawers themselves are triangular shaped to increase their capacity, and the “drawer” closest to the user is a pigeon-hole, with a sliding fake drawer-front (It slides to the left hand side, under the desktop) This removes the awkward drawer position when opened, as well as giving the user more freedom of movement.
The pigeon-hole can accommodate A4 sized paper and slightly larger, because the drawers are not wide enough for that at the far end.

I’ve also included two simple biped figures to give it a better sense of size (I know bipeds are not 100% accurate, but they are close enough for this task). The workspace user also shows that the concern for getting a dirty shirt is not so much a threat, since the elbows and arms are not near the whiteboard at all in a normal usage scenario :slight_smile:

I’ve also given the more metallic green a go, it looks better, but I do not think it is there yet.



This a test of another colour scheme suggested by someone

Cobra 6

#83

Lol, what’s with the annoying supervisor action? :smiley:

#84

Nothing really special, I just wanted a person standing there, but not look like a statue, so I just figured he was explaining something to the guy working at the desk :smiley:

Cobra 6

#85

Here is the new drawer configuration:

And a Birch/silver version:

Cobra 6

#86

I still think this should be height adjustable so you can stand or walk on a treadmill while you work. If a company is going to dish out the doe on a desk like this for someone they are most likely going to be behind it for 10plus hours a day, 10 more hours of unnecessary sitting.

#87

IMHO, Those triangular drawers seem like a really bad idea to me, especially from the standpoint of manufacture. Making a triangular drawer that slides out is going to be very problematic.

It’s one of those things that seems good on paper but try and build that, well it’s going to be a different story.

Cheers,

J

#88

I hadn’t noticed that, but it’s a very good point. A less problematic method would be to make them open on a swivel built into the underside. But definitely sliders would be very difficult in that shape. They’d have to be attached at only 1 side, which would present some problems of it’s own.

Edit: Actually, couldn’t the drawers tracks simply be attached on the bottom?

#89

Wow, cobra you have come a long way with your desk design!

A quick run down of likes and dislikes (basing on birch/silver version)

Likes:

  • shelves, compact and doubly usable (the cork board underneath was a great idea)

  • openness, top and bottom, lots of room to maneuver plus lots of desk space, you have really minimized clutter compared to your older design.

  • rotating whiteboard, very neat idea, and I could definitely see folks gathering around in a think tank type scenario

  • metal stands, very retro and classy and unobtrusive but also strong and sturdy enough to hold up the desk

  • monitor holder, it is not so much the design I like as it is the idea, up and out of the way

  • silver border, classy and matches the stands

Dislikes:

  • rotating whiteboard, while cool is not practical for all jobs, if a certain workplace doesn’t need it then you are left with a huge gap at the end of your desk, plus a dangerously sharp point. I think these whitebaord tables would actually be great sold by themselves, in a cafeteria like setting, where people can casually gather around working out ideas, drawing, or whatever, after the meal they are wiped down, no biggie.

  • whiteboard table drawers, if drawers are to be added, I don’t think the whiteboard table is the place to put them. In fact, I really don’t see where they can be added without breaking up the current design… (sorry)

  • keyboard tray, while I understand what you are trying to do, remember that all sorts of people will be leaning on it, ie, light and heavy alike, at some point it is going to break off. This is, I believe, one of the reasons why current desks usually have the tray underneath the top of the table, so that folks can still lean on the desk without worry of snappage.

  • borders, (except for the silver) the coloured borders wouldn’t be very professional in most office settings. Sure they would go great in the creative places (ie CG studios) but most offices hate colour…

Unsure of:

  • What is the black box on the left side?

  • is the desk still height adjustable?

  • can we get some ‘fences’ or something on the rounded parts of the shelves? seems like things could easily fall off, especially when snapping and unsnapping the shelves in to place, at least, I assume they snap in to place?

Cheers mate, you are definitely getting there! :bounce:

#90

This is an interesting idea for a project - and I mostly agree with what you’re doing (it’s very similar to my personal setup)

I get what the white-board is trying to do, but I don’t think it’s very useful where it is - I scribble stuff down all the time - but it’s usually noting something that I need to refer back to as I’m using my computer. So, even with this fantastic surface for dropping notes on, I’d still end up just using bits of paper (or most frequently, used envelopes).

For me, it’d be more useful if you lost the keyboard tray (I despise those things) and made the area of table behind the keyboard/mouse a ‘scratch pad’ - I often do something similar, and make my working surface a giant pad of paper - but it gets pretty feral during summer.

As for the desk tray - my main objection to them is they always limit your workspace - I use Goliathus mouse pads because they’re huge, and frequently use more than one keyboard - saving space they make sense, but if you have a serious workstation, that space is probably not such an issue.

Also, as a programmer I’d ask for more shelves - for my voluminous collection of O’Reilly books :slight_smile:

#91

ambassador: The design is height adjustable (optional) when sitting, making it height adjustable to a standing position would mean a quite big increase of cost due to construction and required lifting system. I do not know if this is justified for the majority of the users.

3dtutorial: These drawers already have three guiderails under them. They slide out exactly the way they are portrayed now.

spindraft: Yep, that is what they have now :slight_smile:

Geta-Ve:

Glad you like most of it :smiley:

-In this design, rather than removing the whiteboard I developed the idea that the user could have a plain non rotating bit if they did not want a whiteboard. This does not break up the design, but just makes it a little less “rotatable”:slight_smile:

-About the keyboard tray you are indeed right that people tend to lean on their desk, I will take this point and strengthen the construction in that area.

-The black box is the computer case :smiley:
-The desk is still height adjustable, although due financial reasons this will be optional (up to the end user if he wants it or not).
-The fences might be an idea, although I do not know if things would actually tend to fall of. The framework for the shelves is connected to the framework under the desk, which gives the shelves a stable platform. The rotating bit indeed locks into place, I am in the process of sorting out the locking mechanism.

Because of time reasons (hand in for my major project and my written study) I will not be making any major design overhauls anymore. I have got about 5 weeks left to add the little details like the locking mechanism and do some rigging for, and make the animation for the final show. As said also, I have about 3000 words left to write on my written study, and adding all the quotes to it etc.

salmonmoose:
Heheh I doubt any construction would be able to hold your voluminous collection of books by the sound of it :smiley: I do see your reasoning behind it, but my guess would be that if you really have serious collection of books, you’d be better off putting them in a regular book case.

The reason for the placement of the whiteboard like that is the aforementioned dirtying of shirt sleeves and similar things, it is also far to easy to erase stuff by accident if it is too near.
The scratchpad sounds nice, it reminds me of one of the setups a tutor of mine has, but he just placed a regular a3 scratchpad between the keyboard and the monitor.

You are the first one I have encountered using multiple keyboards though :slight_smile: Most programmers I know have a small box which switches the input devices between computers.
But as I said earlier, the keyboard tray is relatively wide to begin with, it is 85cm (33,5 inches) wide, so with a fairly standard size keyboard, that still leaves 36cm (14 inches) for you mousepad.

Glad you agree with most of it too, this means that I have been going in the right direction. (that goes for all of you guys though :))

Like I said above; due to limitations in my time I can still spend on this, I will not be doing any major overhauls or major changes anymore. However if there are suggestion please feel free to tell them, they might be useful to include.

Cobra 6

#92

KVM switches (keyboard, video, mouse) but I’ll often develop on one machine and test on another, multiple keyboards, just work better for me :slight_smile: For the record, my Keyboard is 21 inches wide (MS Natural 4000) and my mouse-pad is 17 inches (for a total of 38). Although, if I’m doing my multiple system thing, I’ll generally just pile a few mice on the same pad, seeing as it’s quite roomy :slight_smile:

#93

^
I use two keyboards too but that’s because I usually use a Kinesis Advantage keyboard and most people can’t use that so I have a regular Saitek keyboard too.

When I used to have more computers I would just use the open source software synergy… kind of like a KVM switch but more like having multiple monitors.

I like C and B. For B… I’m sure you know there have been a ton of people who have “modified” their desks to basically be some version of this… some have even implemented hydraulics :stuck_out_tongue:

#94

I think the drawers would work better if they rotated out. Imagine the desktop circle is cut into 4 even pie slices, then each of those slices was anchored on one side of the curved drawer face with a vertical pivot. You could add an arc shaped track under it, but if you put a stopper on the drawer so that it wouldn’t rotate all the way out, it would probably have enough support without the track. Make sense? (I’d doodle it for you, but I’m on the iPhone)

JMHO

#95

Salmonmoose: Must be a programmer thing I guess :smiley: Thanks for the explanation though hehe.

thedaywillcome: Yeah I know, that was also one of the underlying reasons for this design, to provide it rather than people having to build it themselves.

Pixanaut: That is a nice suggestion actually. However if you place the workspace against the wall, you can’t use part of the drawers or tilting drawers.

Sorry for the late reply guys, currently I am finishing up the design and rendering out the animation and information work. I have about 2-3 weeks to finish everything up, so I will not be changing any more of the design.
Soon I will post some information charts and related material to see what you guys think :slight_smile:

Thank you very much for all the help and feedback so far!

Cobra 6

#96

Not sure if you’ve seen this, sorry if it’s already been posted or you already have it. I used to tutor industrial design and we used this a lot. It has interactive dials, you set the height of the person, it tells you averages on how far they can reach in certain directions and gives you optimal positions for hand placement, angles of pretty much any part of the body. Its a really clever little book (although its pretty eurocentric)
The Measure of Man and Woman: Human Factors in Design

edit;found a picture

#97

That is a very useful resource TMunro! I have not personally seen it before, but I have read books on ergonomics and some of the results of a NASA study about human measurements. When designing I took material from this into practice.

Thank you for that link, shame I didn’t find out about it more early :frowning:

Cobra 6

#98

The book is more geared towards anthropometrics than ergonomics but, it does cover some. It is seriously worth owning a copy of, I’d be highly surprised if your school doesn’t have at least one copy of it. It even has 1:1 scale posters of 99 percentile people. Brilliant for tracing onto mdf and making mock-ups. It has everything from the correct alignment for knobs and levers to work in relation to operator position, to average sizes of “personal space” areas. Pretty much any measurement you can think of, its in there. It is really old though, so a lot of the information about display technology is related to CRTs and like I mentioned, its quite eurocentric, I imagine there would be important differences in human factors to consider if you were designing for say a 99th percentile SriLankan male as opposed to a 99th percentile German male for example.

#99

Out of those options I would have to say C. Personally, the more space the better though!

Main things I would look for are:

  1. Ergonomic possibilities ( height adjustable desk etc )
    2 Space
  2. Comfort

Hope that helps your research and good luck!

#100

Hey guys,

I’ve been working on the fictional promotional booklet for my workspace and here is the result so far:
http://www.j-peters.com/Documents/Libertas.V1.pdf (filesize ~400kb)

I have chosen the name Libertas (Latin for freedom) and I also quickly checked for existing copyrights but I could find none.

This brochure is supposed to represent a real promotional booklet so that might explain al the stars and small print etc :wink: Please tell me what you think

Cheers,
Joep