Before purchasing an office chair you must ask yourself “For what purpose do I most need this chair?” You must ask yourself this question because your best choice will depend on your planned use. For example, are you planning to use this chair for yourself? Are you planning to share this chair with others? Will a variety of people use this chair throughout the day? When you sit in this chair are you likely to spend extended periods of time within its confines, or just an hour here and there?

I wanted to save you some time in your search for the perfect office chair. I don’t want you to have to go through and look at every single office chair in the world, or even on this website. Let’s take a quick look at some of the different uses of office chairs and what qualities are best in chairs used for each of these purposes. After reading this article you should know exactly what you are looking for; then you simply have to glance over the chair reviews to see which chairs have the qualities you need. Then you can focus on reading in depth those particular articles, instead of having to go through every single one.

The different types of office chairs we will look at in this article are those which are best-suited to physical tasks, stationary all-day tasks, and customers and clients.

Physical Tasks
Not all physical tasks involve standing or walking; many involve upper body movement and allow you to stay seated. If your job requires a great deal of upper body movement, you will need a chair which accommodates those movements.
Reaching, stretching, bending, and generally moving your arms around requires a chair which is not bulky. You will want to purchase an office chair which does not have arm rests or which features easily removable arm rests.

If your job requires you to move your chair around from one place to another, you will want to purchase on which is on high-quality castor wheels. Metal wheels are best for those people who roll around their workspace on a consistent basis. Also, if your workspace features carpeting flooring, make sure your chair features carpet-friendly wheels. Your chair should be lightweight, making it easy for you to move about. It should have a 360-degree swivel capability, which is becoming standard in the world of office chairs.

Stationary All-Day Tasks
If you do not move around a lot throughout the course of your work day you will require an office chair which is well-matched to your body. Your body will not be moving around a lot and will, thus, be placing pressure on certain parts of itself. An ill-fitted chair will quickly cause pain. Adjusting yourself into abnormal postures to alleviate pain can cause damage to your body.

You can either spend the time it takes to find a non-adjustable chair which matches the size and curves of your body, or you can look into purchasing a highly-adjustable chair so that you may customize your seating experience to match your body. Either way, you will want to ensure that your chair features the following: non-interfering arm rests which will allow you to pull your chair beneath your desk, lumbar support (the more adjustable the better), a reclining back rest with head and neck support so that you may rest throughout your day, and a seat adjustable in height so that you can match it to any desk you choose. Purchasing a chair for stationary work is all about finding optimal comfort and the best personal fit.

Customer or Client Chair
Customer or client chairs are important in many businesses. You may be looking for a singular chair to sit across from the desk in your office or you may be in search of multiple chairs to sit around a boardroom table.
The most important thing to remember when selecting a customer or client chair is that people come in all shapes and sizes. You should focus your search mostly on accommodating a large variety of body types than on creating utmost comfort. You customers or clients are not likely to spend all day, every day sitting in this chair the way you sit in your office chair. They do not need the best of the best when it comes to ergonomic support, but they do need to fit nicely in the chair.

Try to find a chair which does not have arm rests or which features arm rests adjustable in width. Remember that it is often easier to explain to a petite customer/client that the arms can be adjusted inward that to explain to a larger customer/client that they can be adjusted outward. Out of respect for people’s feelings, you may want to keep the arm rests adjusted at their largest setting.
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You will also want to find a chair with adjustable seat height. Your clients and customers are more likely to be adjusting the height of the chair to their personal heights rather than to the height of a desk, because they aren’t likely to be using the desk very much.

Finally, check the overall weight capacity and ensure that it can handle the weight of someone whose weight is above-average. The last thing you want is for your chair to break with your client sitting in it.