The Effect of Office Layouts and Ambient Office Sounds on the Simple Tasks of White Collar Workers

The purpose of this study is to scrutinize the effect of office layouts and ambient office sounds on the performance of office workers involved with a proof-reading test (simple task). Twenty subjects, who were professional researchers and computer programmers, were from three different office layouts: 1) Nine subjects from a combined office type with open meeting places and closed individual offices; 2) five from an open office with rectangular individual workstations, and 3) six from an open office with triangular individual workstations. Architects and consultants working in the field of office have reported from interviews and their own observations that occupants' satisfaction differs as their office layouts vary although the sizes are the same. This finding leads to the hypothesis of this experiment. Proof-reading test results were obtained from three different office layouts (combined office type, rectangular and triangular individual workstations in open offices) under two different sound conditions (quiet background sound and ambient sound of their own workplace) for 10 minutes. The test analysis shows the mean test score of subjects from the triangular individual workstations in open offices is significantly different from the mean test scores of subjects from the combined office type and the rectangular individual workstations in open offices.