19 ms·

Where we're going, we don't need headphones

203 points by tckr 9y ago

rjeli 9y ago
I like the idea of acoustic padding and visual blockers. My desk is in a darker area with lots of conversation and visual noise. Can anyone recommend how to set up padding and simulate sunlight without being weird/blinding others?
- dsr_ 9y ago
  Simulating sunlight is relatively easy; look for lamps characterized as "full spectrum". Point them down from high places rather than up from low. Noise reduction is hard. The fastest, most efficient solution is to wear a pair of reusable, washable earplugs. If you buy them with a brightly colored cord connecting them, people will usually notice when they approach you. Next best is external ear defenders, the kind used for shooting sports. People will definitely notice that. The downside to both methods is that most people do not like having things inside or on their ears for hours at a time.
  - gvurrdon 9y ago
    Definitely agree on the downside. Another problem is that such hearing protection doesn't work very well against the human voice or similar sounds such as throat clearing, sniffing, etc.
valuearb 9y ago
I agree with the same concerns that Raimo and Markus have. It's not just acoustic noise, it's also visual noise. I face the entry to our open floor plan office and every time someone walks in I can't help but look to see who it is. One man offices are cheap and by far the most productive work environment for software development. Any software development organization that's not investing in them isn't thinking strategically. Engineers should be able to face somewhere that's not distracting, and have a quiet work environment without requiring headphones (music can be a distraction too). If you want to collaborate, do it in your office, it should be big enough for a couple people to join you, or a conference room if you need more. The only criticism I have for one man offices is that it makes it too easy to goof off and surf the web, but that's a different managerial problem. You should make sure all the offices have glass walls so you can see if someone is in their office and have an idea what they are doing. But mainly you should review all code as it's checked in for quality, and it should also give you a good idea of their productivity. I think Apple has the best idea for this. Their work pods at the new campus have all glass walls facing the hallway, sliding doors to maximize room in the office, and built in storage. There looks to be plenty of room for a couple of coworkers to join you and help collaborate when need be.
- gfodor 9y ago
  I think it's easy to severely underestimate the value of having people overhear conversations and interactions of others beyond their obvious scope of work. If you set things up so only explicitly opted-in collaborations occur, then those are the collaborations you will get: people who all agree they should work together on something. This is a subset of the types of interactions that I believe result in great teams. Many collaborations begin when one person overhears another person they had no idea was working on something relevant to them, or that they could give valuable input on. As with anything, there is a balance, and I believe there is no silver bullet to designing good offices. But I question those who think there is, and that siloing humans into isolated offices (a fundamentally unnatural state) as the default is objectively the best option. (And before citing the various studies showing the impact on productivity of doing this, I feel productivity is only one characteristic of what I personally consider to be a good measure of a healthy work environment.)
  - kakarot 9y ago
    That's a great point. Perhaps the sweet spot is a hybrid between the two, with mandated "shared" hours where you fraternize with peers in a lax environment in addition to your time spent hacking away in the office free from distraction. If you really need to get something done, bring your laptop or speak with your supervisor about temporary exemption. Even if "work" is not being produced in the narrow sense, fraternization has undeniable benefits to a company's culture, productivity, and overall cohesiveness.
    - gfodor 9y ago
      To me for software engineering I think right now a good local optimum is: - Ensure portability of workstations with no loss of productivity (powerful laptops, devices, etc) - Counteract any dynamics that may inhibit opt-in WFH or remote time. (poor tools, cultural perception that it is not productive to wfh, etc) - Provide in-office tools to opt-in to better isolation (headphones, private 'plug and play' workstations, etc) - Try to develop some form of cadence where remote time is the norm on regular intervals. For us it's Tu/Thurs, but you could imagine lots of configurations. People I believe tend to then backlog work which requires dedicated focus for these days.
voidwtf 9y ago
Something about this doesn't feel right, I want to call it "passive aggressive" but that doesn't feel right either. In an open office I've always felt that headphones were the best solution to the need for peace. I feel like spontaneous dialog would be cut short by this solution more often than being moved. I guess what works for one may not work for another, and the frequency and varying views on this topic reminds me of the "tabs vs spaces" discussions. p.s. tabs
- driverdan 9y ago
  I think you missed the point. It's not about headphones, it's about needing headphones to block disruption. If you need something like that then it's a poor office design. > I feel like spontaneous dialog would be cut short by this solution more often than being moved. Good. Spontaneous dialog is far more often disruptive to productivity than it is helpful.
  - gfodor 9y ago
    > Spontaneous dialog is far more often disruptive to productivity than it is helpful. I think this is the crux of where most of these threads end up. Not everyone agrees with both the explicit and implicit premise of this point: - Not everyone agrees that productivity should be the exclusive focus of office design decisions - Not everyone agrees that spontaneous discussions should not be embraced as a core mechanism of enhancing team-wide productivity
    - pseudalopex 9y ago
      These discussions focus on productivity because the main arguments in favor of open floor plans are that they're cheaper and supposedly improve team productivity. Studies show that more people prefer offices, and above all people prefer having a choice.
    - sotojuan 9y ago
      The problem with the argument for/against "serendipity" is that 95% of these spontaneous conversations are useless and created solely to kill boredom, but the remaining 5% do end up helping out. My dream scenario would be private rooms surrounding a common working area. But the CEOs/MBAs see Facebook brag about their largest open office ever and tell themselves "I wanna be like that!!!" and follow suit.
wry_discontent 9y ago
My current office is pretty ideal for me. We have 6 devs, and we sit in a room with a door. It's quiet, but we can hear if there is a concern or something going on that requires attention. The issue with single person offices is that you'll miss when somebody is discussing an issue they're having, maybe they mention it offhandedly, and you know the solution. That said, I would still vastly prefer an office to myself than a god awful open-floor bullshit abomination. How anybody can work in that kind of environment boggles my mind.
- sdoering 9y ago
  It is similar where I am working. We have a 4 person office with most of the time only ever places in use. That really contrasts to open plan I had before.
- driverdan 9y ago
  A team that small is pretty easy to manage in any type of space. Once you're bigger you need to put a lot more thought into planning the office.
- valuearb 9y ago
  I've worked in 2 man offices that were super distracting. The product manager on the product I wasn't working on would come in to talk to the other engineer, and I could not filter it out, even though it was entirely unrelated to my work. I think the key to a shared work area is that everyone should be on the same team working on the same project, so the distractions are at least pertinent to your job. But I also think you are probably reaching the limits of that with 6 devs.
nulagrithom 9y ago
I'm not sure the problem is with the physical decibel level of office noise at all. My workplace is silent as a tomb, we all have our own offices with closing doors, and I still bring headphones to work. Sure, even something little as phone chatter can be distracting, but the main distractions come from people just passing by and saying 'hi', or worse, actually needing something from me and interrupting my work. Headphones and a closed door tend to signal that I'm busy, but even then someone will knock on the window and see if they can come in. People are intentionally distracting, and I think it's something that's way harder to fix than just a stop light indicating noise level. It has to be "fixed" on multiple levels. Having an office culture of "just stop by their desk" is a huge problem, but I can't imagine being unavailable because there's so many distractions that really are urgent and need my synchronous interaction right now. That's a tough thing to fix.
- bckygldstn 9y ago
  I agree with this, I am fortunate to have the opposite situation at work. We have an open office with lots of visual and auditory noise. But I am rarely interrupted by other people, we have a good culture of asynchronous communication, and I do most of my work alone. So I'm pretty productive in my shared cubicle with headphones and dual monitors.
- freehunter 9y ago
  Similarly, when I get on a plane the first thing I do is put on my headphones. I don't often listen to anything though, most times I'm reading comic books. But the signal to the person sitting next to me is "don't bother me", and most times people understand it immediately.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  >> but even then someone will knock on the window and see if they can come in... People are intentionally distracting,... I think it is, like most things, about balance. I would not like it if the workplace had an implicit culture that strongly discouraged people from going and talking to other people without going through red tape (set up a meeting or similar). What's the point of being in a common space then? Might as well just work from home. I think there is value in those spontaneous conversations (sometimes all you need is a one line response for what would otherwise have wasted your whole day), and I think people who assume that sitting with headphones on all the time means they should never be 'disturbed' are being a bit uncharitable.
polygot 9y ago
> " This is where Noisy comes into play, a small Slackbot I wrote that enables people to anonymously raise the issue for everyone else to see" It's a good idea, but it might be counterproductive to message everyone that they're being too noisey; that might contribute to the noise
- Tharkun 9y ago
  That just sounds like passive aggressively leaving angry postits on the fridge. If you're being obnoxiously loud and keeping me from working, I will assertively tell you to keep it down (or aggressively, if you're the annoying salesperson who spends most of his time making loud, personal calls). Good office design certainly helps with noise, but some people are simply obnoxious without realising it. Educating them can be helpful.
djhworld 9y ago
Sometimes people wear headphones because they find listening to music helps them work, regardless of the noise level in the office.
sabujp 9y ago
> GitHub, Slack, Screenhero, Hangout etc will make sure nothing gets lost and we stay up to date. Except for that you miss being challenged at the soccer table … just sayin’. Sometimes when you're not there at the meeting in person, your point isn't taken as seriously.
nemetroid 9y ago
The traffic light reminds me of SoundEar [1], noise monitors which were popular in Swedish classrooms fifteen years ago (and might still be). It worked well in my seventh grade classroom. I'm not so sure about the red light being manual trigger only. I think it's better to decide objectively on what the desirable noise level should be. [1]: http://soundear.com/ http://soundear.com/
wpietri 9y ago
I'm a big fan of this. Work environments should be optimized for productivity. Most software is a team sport, so they should generally be optimized for team productivity. What that means will be different for everybody. But for me I've had the best results with team-specific spaces that have some visual and noise isolation from other teams and wandering interruptions. I also like to have clear separate space for non-whole-team discussions and for hanging out. Places where everybody gets in and cranks up their headphones to protect from the madness strike me as the modern noise equivalent of the 1960s/1970s rivers that were basically open industrial sewers. [1] If that's what it's like, you might as well let people work remote, as you've already lost most of the productivity gains that come from close collaboration. But those gains really can be amazing, so personally I'm going to keep pursuing them. [1] E.g., the Ohio river that caught on fire: https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63 https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63
natch 9y ago
We are asked not to lead with negativity on HN, but once in a while an article comes through that just screams out as requiring an exception. Asking people to reduce the noise level is straight up a horrible idea. Especially the obnoxious /noisy command and the nanny state thinking it encourages. I thrive and get in the zone when there is plenty of noise and varied conversation around me. I know that many people feel the same way. A quiet office is the worst for maintaining focus, as then any little conversation will stand out and catch my attention. And I say all this not as a loud person. Quite the opposite. I almost never use headphones; don't need to because the office is noisy enough to stay in a good coding zone. But having some social stigma about wearing them, that would be bad.
- treehau5 9y ago
  > Asking people to reduce the noise level is straight up a horrible idea. It's about as horrible as an idea as the open office was. Forcing everyone to be in a compromised position when they feel like they can't get work done in a distracting environment is a straight up horrible -- borderline inhumane idea. > and the nanny state thinking it encourages. About as nanny state as HR policies are these days with what you can and cannot say/browse/view/post on social media these days. It comes with working for a company I guess. No reason to object now. > I thrive and get in the zone when there is plenty of noise and varied conversation around me. Current knowledge of how our brains operate and evolved show that you are the statistical anomaly. To do deep work that requires concentration, you need quiet and minimal distractions.
- valuearb 9y ago
  I believe your anecdotal evidence is wrong. Studies have shown that developers are much more productive when they have quiet and private offices. In fact, studies have also shown that listening to music reduces productivity, with instrumental music the least bothersome. Our brains have highly developed communication abilities, language processing is a function that requires a significant part of our brains to work. Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, whenever you hear words, whether spoken or sung, your brain starts decoding them. That's reducing the amount of brain power you have remaining to work on your conscious tasks.
- 9y ago
erentz 9y ago
> "Get... ceiling baffles for the whole office." Yes please! At least this. For some reason there has been this huge trend with new buildings to just have exposed concrete ceilings and HVAC plant. Why? Seemingly because it's "cool" and how the "start ups" do it. (Back when a start up meant working from a low cost warehouse.) But ceiling baffles were there for a very good reason, to dampen and prevent reflection of noise in office spaces. How did we forget this? EDIT: (At the last place I worked like this their solution was to install white noise generators on the ceiling. So the whole place was like being on an aircraft and very sleep inducing.)
- freehunter 9y ago
  Oh man as a traveling consultant, I purposefully trained myself to fall asleep on an airplane and anytime I hear anything resembling white noise I'm instantly asleep. Having it in a building would just lead to an increase in naps from me.
  - goblin89 9y ago
    How did you train yourself to fall asleep on an airplane?
    - freehunter 9y ago
      I have an app that plays noise that sounds like a jet engine that I play as I'm falling asleep. After a few weeks of that, being on a plane just knocks me right out.
aarohmankad 9y ago
> "I assembled this chart to show how this can already have an impact five days into the experiment..." https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/assets/office_noise_noisy_invocations.png https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/assets/office_noise_noisy... I don't think this chart demonstrates your point. Don't you want people to eventually stop needing to use Noisy at all? As of now the chart just shows that more people are familiar with the Slack command. I would also be interested in knowing how large the team is that this is being tested on.
caub 9y ago
What I dislike even more than noise, is smoking. Smokers stink all day, sometimes smoke gets in via doors/windows and wind streams, it has always been my worst trouble, to avoid that
tootie 9y ago
I've read so many articles about people who can't stand noisy offices, but the only complaint I've ever heard from co-workers IRL is the office being too quiet. If it's quiet, no one is collaborating.
gingerlime 9y ago
Slightly OT, but any recommendations for an alternative to music with headphones? The reason I'm asking is because I don't think I could concentrate with any form of music. I tried some "fake cafe sound" and I still felt distracted (more than I do in a real cafe). White noise? Ear plugs? Binaural beats? I actually work from home with my wife across the desk. We have a relatively quiet environment, with no or very low volume music playing. I'm not hyper sensitive to noise at all. But I would still like to be able to isolate myself completely some time to focus. So just wondering if there are any tips.
- tiles 9y ago
  Rain noise helps me sleep and it helps me focus. ASMR is strangely helpful sometimes too. I've found it's never a silver bullet, but trying different white noise sounds to fit the moment.
- INTPenis 9y ago
  I've tried so many things. Many styles are out of the question because I focus on the words too much. As far as music goes electronic like Daft Punk or Neelix is my favorite but it also has its drawbacks. So finally I think asoftmurmur.com is best. But even with the perfect noise, or lack of noise with active noise cancelling headphones, not everyone can wear headphones 4 hours in a row. Some people hurt from being built differently around the ears. And this article focuses a lot on noise level but that's not the problem for me. The office could be totally quiet but if one person is having a phone conversation I focus on everything they say. Depending on the person my mind might even start to wander and think about what the person on the other end might be saying. So for me working from home has been a god send. And we didn't have an acceptable culture of working from home. I simply forced it and said damn to the consequences. But I have no kids and live alone. When I'm at my gfs place her daughter and her friends are too much for me. I can only work 3-4 hour sprints because wearing headphones longer than that is uncomfortable. I've found the in-ear headphones to be better in that case.
  - gingerlime 9y ago
    Thanks for that. Never tried any noise cancellation headphones before. I did find that it's not so much the pressure, but rather that my ears get really hot with those big headphones. So I can't wear them for longer than 20 minutes or so. Are there / can anyone recommend in-ear headphones with noise cancellation?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
atemerev 9y ago
I am so happy to work 100% remote. Interruptions and noise are real productivity killers to me.
noahdesu 9y ago
As a software engineer, unfortunately, the sound sources that drive me to the edge of insanity are things like loud typing, or hands fishing around for chips in a bag. While I feel totally comfortable asking people to quiet down a conversation, there is something too personal about asking someone to consider, specifically, how must force they drop down on the space bar. I like the idea behind /noisey, but I feel like I may be alone in being concerned that no one would register these fringe noise sources when considering their contribution to a soundscape. There probably isn't a good solution, so headphones will have to do.
- mee_too 9y ago
  A couple solutions: one man offices, working from home.
burntrelish1273 9y ago
Depending on roles, it can make sense to do the following: - have reservable floating offices and various sized-conference rooms w/ doors - some dedicated offices w/ doors - some open layout for pair coding, but not exclusively - some casual multipurpose hangout/couch meeting/work/relax areas - remote work from home, coffee-shop, beach, mountain top, etc. - perhaps an discreet workspace indicator (web + IoT physical) that says (perhaps using color codes): - out for the day - out temporarily - free to socialize (which auto-suggests people to chat with in this state) - working - do not disturb, unless it's an emergency This way, there's more choice and people can self-select some common-sense and have enough variety to not get stuck in open floor-plan, panacea, audio-visual-social distraction hell.
gaza3g 9y ago
I have read dozens of articles like this and as a developer, it would be great to work at a place like that: WFH option, non-open plan layout / 4-man offices. But the people who want that are rarely the ones in a position to implement that sort of environment. So nothing ever changes.
julenx 9y ago
The company I work for has open plan offices — it's a US company with multiple offices worldwide. The specific one I work from is small, and devs and non-devs are _mixed_ together. Whenever I tried to bring up noise-related issues and made specific proposals, I felt I was ignored because of a) clash of cultures (non-devs might not understand/value "being in the zone" [1]), b) spending money in sound-proofing is seen as a cost, not an investment. What worries me the most is that in the course of a few years I haven't heard any internal voices putting open plan offices in doubt. This office layout looks to be seen as a good default with problems that are either ignored or that people have to learn to live with. So I wonder if the situation is similar in other companies with open plan offices, and whether people see there's any trend to question the given default or not. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/19/where-do-these-people-get-their-unoriginal-ideas/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/19/where-do-these-peo...
pklausler 9y ago
I wouldn't have to wear AirPods beneath 30dB landscaper earmuffs to get shit done if management would do something about the 5% of noisy people polluting the common space we all have to sit in. The best office layout would be the one that puts the inconsiderate primates behind soundproofing.
- nunez 9y ago
  or maybe the problem is that you can't handle people? "Inconsiderate primates?" AirPods underneath muffs? But why?
  - pklausler 9y ago
    Because one cellular telephone conversation can disrupt the concentration of 30 engineers hours-deep into complicated debugging jobs, especially when it's one side of a lengthy dramatic argument. It takes each engineer about 15 minutes to recover concentration, in my estimation. So that's about 7.5 hours lost, or about a programmer day. Concentration is precious and fragile. If you can know just one thing about managing programmers, please know that.
chipotle_coyote 9y ago
I increasingly suspect visual and auditory noise are symptoms rather than problems. The underlying problem may boil down to this: while easy collaboration helps us be productive, having our own space also helps us be productive. Here's an idea: every worker should get their own big desk, maybe an L-shaped one, with file cabinets and ample storage, and even shelves and walls behind the desk that they could put up memos, calendars, whatever. But they don't have to be completely walled-off little offices. Don't give them doors; don't make the walls go all the way to the ceiling. This would greatly reduce visual noise, and combined with good acoustic design for the rest of the office (as the article touches on), it would at the least cut down on auditory noise--and more importantly, it would make it so going over to talk to a coworker in person required just a little more effort than it does in an open office. Collaboration would still be pretty easy, but raising a little more barrier than the current fashion might improve concentration and, dare I say, the little bit of emotional boost that comes from having your own perceived space. I'm not sure what we would call these purely hypothetical half-wall workspaces--these "cubicles," if you will--though....
Double_a_92 9y ago
I often have the opposite problem. We are like 15 people in our office, and some are very sound sensitive. I feel like I can't even properly discuss things with my other colleagues or even peer program out of fear of disturbing the others. If you are really that sensitive get earplugs, instead of cussing at others!
- egeozcan 9y ago
  It's not them being sensitive or that you want to discuss things. This is the problem: > We are like 15 people in our office I wouldn't even be able to read comics with so many people talking, let alone do my job.
the6threplicant 9y ago
Hopefully when we start using voice activation as much as we now use the mouse, then the open office space will become a thing of the past. One can hope.

203 points by tckr 9y ago

I like the idea of acoustic padding and visual blockers. My desk is in a darker area with lots of conversation and visual noise. Can anyone recommend how to set up padding and simulate sunlight without being weird/blinding others?

dsr_ 9y ago
Simulating sunlight is relatively easy; look for lamps characterized as "full spectrum". Point them down from high places rather than up from low. Noise reduction is hard. The fastest, most efficient solution is to wear a pair of reusable, washable earplugs. If you buy them with a brightly colored cord connecting them, people will usually notice when they approach you. Next best is external ear defenders, the kind used for shooting sports. People will definitely notice that. The downside to both methods is that most people do not like having things inside or on their ears for hours at a time.
- gvurrdon 9y ago
  Definitely agree on the downside. Another problem is that such hearing protection doesn't work very well against the human voice or similar sounds such as throat clearing, sniffing, etc.

valuearb 9y ago

I agree with the same concerns that Raimo and Markus have. It's not just acoustic noise, it's also visual noise. I face the entry to our open floor plan office and every time someone walks in I can't help but look to see who it is. One man offices are cheap and by far the most productive work environment for software development. Any software development organization that's not investing in them isn't thinking strategically. Engineers should be able to face somewhere that's not distracting, and have a quiet work environment without requiring headphones (music can be a distraction too). If you want to collaborate, do it in your office, it should be big enough for a couple people to join you, or a conference room if you need more. The only criticism I have for one man offices is that it makes it too easy to goof off and surf the web, but that's a different managerial problem. You should make sure all the offices have glass walls so you can see if someone is in their office and have an idea what they are doing. But mainly you should review all code as it's checked in for quality, and it should also give you a good idea of their productivity. I think Apple has the best idea for this. Their work pods at the new campus have all glass walls facing the hallway, sliding doors to maximize room in the office, and built in storage. There looks to be plenty of room for a couple of coworkers to join you and help collaborate when need be.

gfodor 9y ago
I think it's easy to severely underestimate the value of having people overhear conversations and interactions of others beyond their obvious scope of work. If you set things up so only explicitly opted-in collaborations occur, then those are the collaborations you will get: people who all agree they should work together on something. This is a subset of the types of interactions that I believe result in great teams. Many collaborations begin when one person overhears another person they had no idea was working on something relevant to them, or that they could give valuable input on. As with anything, there is a balance, and I believe there is no silver bullet to designing good offices. But I question those who think there is, and that siloing humans into isolated offices (a fundamentally unnatural state) as the default is objectively the best option. (And before citing the various studies showing the impact on productivity of doing this, I feel productivity is only one characteristic of what I personally consider to be a good measure of a healthy work environment.)
- kakarot 9y ago
  That's a great point. Perhaps the sweet spot is a hybrid between the two, with mandated "shared" hours where you fraternize with peers in a lax environment in addition to your time spent hacking away in the office free from distraction. If you really need to get something done, bring your laptop or speak with your supervisor about temporary exemption. Even if "work" is not being produced in the narrow sense, fraternization has undeniable benefits to a company's culture, productivity, and overall cohesiveness.
  - gfodor 9y ago
    To me for software engineering I think right now a good local optimum is: - Ensure portability of workstations with no loss of productivity (powerful laptops, devices, etc) - Counteract any dynamics that may inhibit opt-in WFH or remote time. (poor tools, cultural perception that it is not productive to wfh, etc) - Provide in-office tools to opt-in to better isolation (headphones, private 'plug and play' workstations, etc) - Try to develop some form of cadence where remote time is the norm on regular intervals. For us it's Tu/Thurs, but you could imagine lots of configurations. People I believe tend to then backlog work which requires dedicated focus for these days.

voidwtf 9y ago

Something about this doesn't feel right, I want to call it "passive aggressive" but that doesn't feel right either. In an open office I've always felt that headphones were the best solution to the need for peace. I feel like spontaneous dialog would be cut short by this solution more often than being moved. I guess what works for one may not work for another, and the frequency and varying views on this topic reminds me of the "tabs vs spaces" discussions. p.s. tabs

driverdan 9y ago
I think you missed the point. It's not about headphones, it's about needing headphones to block disruption. If you need something like that then it's a poor office design. > I feel like spontaneous dialog would be cut short by this solution more often than being moved. Good. Spontaneous dialog is far more often disruptive to productivity than it is helpful.
- gfodor 9y ago
  > Spontaneous dialog is far more often disruptive to productivity than it is helpful. I think this is the crux of where most of these threads end up. Not everyone agrees with both the explicit and implicit premise of this point: - Not everyone agrees that productivity should be the exclusive focus of office design decisions - Not everyone agrees that spontaneous discussions should not be embraced as a core mechanism of enhancing team-wide productivity
  - pseudalopex 9y ago
    These discussions focus on productivity because the main arguments in favor of open floor plans are that they're cheaper and supposedly improve team productivity. Studies show that more people prefer offices, and above all people prefer having a choice.
  - sotojuan 9y ago
    The problem with the argument for/against "serendipity" is that 95% of these spontaneous conversations are useless and created solely to kill boredom, but the remaining 5% do end up helping out. My dream scenario would be private rooms surrounding a common working area. But the CEOs/MBAs see Facebook brag about their largest open office ever and tell themselves "I wanna be like that!!!" and follow suit.

wry_discontent 9y ago

My current office is pretty ideal for me. We have 6 devs, and we sit in a room with a door. It's quiet, but we can hear if there is a concern or something going on that requires attention. The issue with single person offices is that you'll miss when somebody is discussing an issue they're having, maybe they mention it offhandedly, and you know the solution. That said, I would still vastly prefer an office to myself than a god awful open-floor bullshit abomination. How anybody can work in that kind of environment boggles my mind.

sdoering 9y ago
It is similar where I am working. We have a 4 person office with most of the time only ever places in use. That really contrasts to open plan I had before.
driverdan 9y ago
A team that small is pretty easy to manage in any type of space. Once you're bigger you need to put a lot more thought into planning the office.
valuearb 9y ago
I've worked in 2 man offices that were super distracting. The product manager on the product I wasn't working on would come in to talk to the other engineer, and I could not filter it out, even though it was entirely unrelated to my work. I think the key to a shared work area is that everyone should be on the same team working on the same project, so the distractions are at least pertinent to your job. But I also think you are probably reaching the limits of that with 6 devs.

nulagrithom 9y ago

I'm not sure the problem is with the physical decibel level of office noise at all. My workplace is silent as a tomb, we all have our own offices with closing doors, and I still bring headphones to work. Sure, even something little as phone chatter can be distracting, but the main distractions come from people just passing by and saying 'hi', or worse, actually needing something from me and interrupting my work. Headphones and a closed door tend to signal that I'm busy, but even then someone will knock on the window and see if they can come in. People are intentionally distracting, and I think it's something that's way harder to fix than just a stop light indicating noise level. It has to be "fixed" on multiple levels. Having an office culture of "just stop by their desk" is a huge problem, but I can't imagine being unavailable because there's so many distractions that really are urgent and need my synchronous interaction right now. That's a tough thing to fix.

bckygldstn 9y ago
I agree with this, I am fortunate to have the opposite situation at work. We have an open office with lots of visual and auditory noise. But I am rarely interrupted by other people, we have a good culture of asynchronous communication, and I do most of my work alone. So I'm pretty productive in my shared cubicle with headphones and dual monitors.
freehunter 9y ago
Similarly, when I get on a plane the first thing I do is put on my headphones. I don't often listen to anything though, most times I'm reading comic books. But the signal to the person sitting next to me is "don't bother me", and most times people understand it immediately.
kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
>> but even then someone will knock on the window and see if they can come in... People are intentionally distracting,... I think it is, like most things, about balance. I would not like it if the workplace had an implicit culture that strongly discouraged people from going and talking to other people without going through red tape (set up a meeting or similar). What's the point of being in a common space then? Might as well just work from home. I think there is value in those spontaneous conversations (sometimes all you need is a one line response for what would otherwise have wasted your whole day), and I think people who assume that sitting with headphones on all the time means they should never be 'disturbed' are being a bit uncharitable.

polygot 9y ago

> " This is where Noisy comes into play, a small Slackbot I wrote that enables people to anonymously raise the issue for everyone else to see" It's a good idea, but it might be counterproductive to message everyone that they're being too noisey; that might contribute to the noise

Tharkun 9y ago
That just sounds like passive aggressively leaving angry postits on the fridge. If you're being obnoxiously loud and keeping me from working, I will assertively tell you to keep it down (or aggressively, if you're the annoying salesperson who spends most of his time making loud, personal calls). Good office design certainly helps with noise, but some people are simply obnoxious without realising it. Educating them can be helpful.

djhworld 9y ago

Sometimes people wear headphones because they find listening to music helps them work, regardless of the noise level in the office.

sabujp 9y ago

> GitHub, Slack, Screenhero, Hangout etc will make sure nothing gets lost and we stay up to date. Except for that you miss being challenged at the soccer table … just sayin’. Sometimes when you're not there at the meeting in person, your point isn't taken as seriously.

nemetroid 9y ago

The traffic light reminds me of SoundEar [1], noise monitors which were popular in Swedish classrooms fifteen years ago (and might still be). It worked well in my seventh grade classroom. I'm not so sure about the red light being manual trigger only. I think it's better to decide objectively on what the desirable noise level should be. [1]: http://soundear.com/ http://soundear.com/

wpietri 9y ago

I'm a big fan of this. Work environments should be optimized for productivity. Most software is a team sport, so they should generally be optimized for team productivity. What that means will be different for everybody. But for me I've had the best results with team-specific spaces that have some visual and noise isolation from other teams and wandering interruptions. I also like to have clear separate space for non-whole-team discussions and for hanging out. Places where everybody gets in and cranks up their headphones to protect from the madness strike me as the modern noise equivalent of the 1960s/1970s rivers that were basically open industrial sewers. [1] If that's what it's like, you might as well let people work remote, as you've already lost most of the productivity gains that come from close collaboration. But those gains really can be amazing, so personally I'm going to keep pursuing them. [1] E.g., the Ohio river that caught on fire: https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63 https://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63

natch 9y ago

We are asked not to lead with negativity on HN, but once in a while an article comes through that just screams out as requiring an exception. Asking people to reduce the noise level is straight up a horrible idea. Especially the obnoxious /noisy command and the nanny state thinking it encourages. I thrive and get in the zone when there is plenty of noise and varied conversation around me. I know that many people feel the same way. A quiet office is the worst for maintaining focus, as then any little conversation will stand out and catch my attention. And I say all this not as a loud person. Quite the opposite. I almost never use headphones; don't need to because the office is noisy enough to stay in a good coding zone. But having some social stigma about wearing them, that would be bad.

treehau5 9y ago
> Asking people to reduce the noise level is straight up a horrible idea. It's about as horrible as an idea as the open office was. Forcing everyone to be in a compromised position when they feel like they can't get work done in a distracting environment is a straight up horrible -- borderline inhumane idea. > and the nanny state thinking it encourages. About as nanny state as HR policies are these days with what you can and cannot say/browse/view/post on social media these days. It comes with working for a company I guess. No reason to object now. > I thrive and get in the zone when there is plenty of noise and varied conversation around me. Current knowledge of how our brains operate and evolved show that you are the statistical anomaly. To do deep work that requires concentration, you need quiet and minimal distractions.
valuearb 9y ago
I believe your anecdotal evidence is wrong. Studies have shown that developers are much more productive when they have quiet and private offices. In fact, studies have also shown that listening to music reduces productivity, with instrumental music the least bothersome. Our brains have highly developed communication abilities, language processing is a function that requires a significant part of our brains to work. Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, whenever you hear words, whether spoken or sung, your brain starts decoding them. That's reducing the amount of brain power you have remaining to work on your conscious tasks.
9y ago

erentz 9y ago

> "Get... ceiling baffles for the whole office." Yes please! At least this. For some reason there has been this huge trend with new buildings to just have exposed concrete ceilings and HVAC plant. Why? Seemingly because it's "cool" and how the "start ups" do it. (Back when a start up meant working from a low cost warehouse.) But ceiling baffles were there for a very good reason, to dampen and prevent reflection of noise in office spaces. How did we forget this? EDIT: (At the last place I worked like this their solution was to install white noise generators on the ceiling. So the whole place was like being on an aircraft and very sleep inducing.)

freehunter 9y ago
Oh man as a traveling consultant, I purposefully trained myself to fall asleep on an airplane and anytime I hear anything resembling white noise I'm instantly asleep. Having it in a building would just lead to an increase in naps from me.
- goblin89 9y ago
  How did you train yourself to fall asleep on an airplane?
  - freehunter 9y ago
    I have an app that plays noise that sounds like a jet engine that I play as I'm falling asleep. After a few weeks of that, being on a plane just knocks me right out.

aarohmankad 9y ago

> "I assembled this chart to show how this can already have an impact five days into the experiment..." https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/assets/office_noise_noisy_invocations.png https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/assets/office_noise_noisy... I don't think this chart demonstrates your point. Don't you want people to eventually stop needing to use Noisy at all? As of now the chart just shows that more people are familiar with the Slack command. I would also be interested in knowing how large the team is that this is being tested on.

caub 9y ago

What I dislike even more than noise, is smoking. Smokers stink all day, sometimes smoke gets in via doors/windows and wind streams, it has always been my worst trouble, to avoid that

tootie 9y ago

I've read so many articles about people who can't stand noisy offices, but the only complaint I've ever heard from co-workers IRL is the office being too quiet. If it's quiet, no one is collaborating.

gingerlime 9y ago

Slightly OT, but any recommendations for an alternative to music with headphones? The reason I'm asking is because I don't think I could concentrate with any form of music. I tried some "fake cafe sound" and I still felt distracted (more than I do in a real cafe). White noise? Ear plugs? Binaural beats? I actually work from home with my wife across the desk. We have a relatively quiet environment, with no or very low volume music playing. I'm not hyper sensitive to noise at all. But I would still like to be able to isolate myself completely some time to focus. So just wondering if there are any tips.

tiles 9y ago
Rain noise helps me sleep and it helps me focus. ASMR is strangely helpful sometimes too. I've found it's never a silver bullet, but trying different white noise sounds to fit the moment.
INTPenis 9y ago
I've tried so many things. Many styles are out of the question because I focus on the words too much. As far as music goes electronic like Daft Punk or Neelix is my favorite but it also has its drawbacks. So finally I think asoftmurmur.com is best. But even with the perfect noise, or lack of noise with active noise cancelling headphones, not everyone can wear headphones 4 hours in a row. Some people hurt from being built differently around the ears. And this article focuses a lot on noise level but that's not the problem for me. The office could be totally quiet but if one person is having a phone conversation I focus on everything they say. Depending on the person my mind might even start to wander and think about what the person on the other end might be saying. So for me working from home has been a god send. And we didn't have an acceptable culture of working from home. I simply forced it and said damn to the consequences. But I have no kids and live alone. When I'm at my gfs place her daughter and her friends are too much for me. I can only work 3-4 hour sprints because wearing headphones longer than that is uncomfortable. I've found the in-ear headphones to be better in that case.
- gingerlime 9y ago
  Thanks for that. Never tried any noise cancellation headphones before. I did find that it's not so much the pressure, but rather that my ears get really hot with those big headphones. So I can't wear them for longer than 20 minutes or so. Are there / can anyone recommend in-ear headphones with noise cancellation?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

atemerev 9y ago

I am so happy to work 100% remote. Interruptions and noise are real productivity killers to me.

noahdesu 9y ago

As a software engineer, unfortunately, the sound sources that drive me to the edge of insanity are things like loud typing, or hands fishing around for chips in a bag. While I feel totally comfortable asking people to quiet down a conversation, there is something too personal about asking someone to consider, specifically, how must force they drop down on the space bar. I like the idea behind /noisey, but I feel like I may be alone in being concerned that no one would register these fringe noise sources when considering their contribution to a soundscape. There probably isn't a good solution, so headphones will have to do.

mee_too 9y ago
A couple solutions: one man offices, working from home.

burntrelish1273 9y ago

Depending on roles, it can make sense to do the following: - have reservable floating offices and various sized-conference rooms w/ doors - some dedicated offices w/ doors - some open layout for pair coding, but not exclusively - some casual multipurpose hangout/couch meeting/work/relax areas - remote work from home, coffee-shop, beach, mountain top, etc. - perhaps an discreet workspace indicator (web + IoT physical) that says (perhaps using color codes): - out for the day - out temporarily - free to socialize (which auto-suggests people to chat with in this state) - working - do not disturb, unless it's an emergency This way, there's more choice and people can self-select some common-sense and have enough variety to not get stuck in open floor-plan, panacea, audio-visual-social distraction hell.

gaza3g 9y ago

I have read dozens of articles like this and as a developer, it would be great to work at a place like that: WFH option, non-open plan layout / 4-man offices. But the people who want that are rarely the ones in a position to implement that sort of environment. So nothing ever changes.

julenx 9y ago

The company I work for has open plan offices — it's a US company with multiple offices worldwide. The specific one I work from is small, and devs and non-devs are _mixed_ together. Whenever I tried to bring up noise-related issues and made specific proposals, I felt I was ignored because of a) clash of cultures (non-devs might not understand/value "being in the zone" [1]), b) spending money in sound-proofing is seen as a cost, not an investment. What worries me the most is that in the course of a few years I haven't heard any internal voices putting open plan offices in doubt. This office layout looks to be seen as a good default with problems that are either ignored or that people have to learn to live with. So I wonder if the situation is similar in other companies with open plan offices, and whether people see there's any trend to question the given default or not. [1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/19/where-do-these-people-get-their-unoriginal-ideas/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/19/where-do-these-peo...

pklausler 9y ago

I wouldn't have to wear AirPods beneath 30dB landscaper earmuffs to get shit done if management would do something about the 5% of noisy people polluting the common space we all have to sit in. The best office layout would be the one that puts the inconsiderate primates behind soundproofing.

nunez 9y ago
or maybe the problem is that you can't handle people? "Inconsiderate primates?" AirPods underneath muffs? But why?
- pklausler 9y ago
  Because one cellular telephone conversation can disrupt the concentration of 30 engineers hours-deep into complicated debugging jobs, especially when it's one side of a lengthy dramatic argument. It takes each engineer about 15 minutes to recover concentration, in my estimation. So that's about 7.5 hours lost, or about a programmer day. Concentration is precious and fragile. If you can know just one thing about managing programmers, please know that.

chipotle_coyote 9y ago

I increasingly suspect visual and auditory noise are symptoms rather than problems. The underlying problem may boil down to this: while easy collaboration helps us be productive, having our own space also helps us be productive. Here's an idea: every worker should get their own big desk, maybe an L-shaped one, with file cabinets and ample storage, and even shelves and walls behind the desk that they could put up memos, calendars, whatever. But they don't have to be completely walled-off little offices. Don't give them doors; don't make the walls go all the way to the ceiling. This would greatly reduce visual noise, and combined with good acoustic design for the rest of the office (as the article touches on), it would at the least cut down on auditory noise--and more importantly, it would make it so going over to talk to a coworker in person required just a little more effort than it does in an open office. Collaboration would still be pretty easy, but raising a little more barrier than the current fashion might improve concentration and, dare I say, the little bit of emotional boost that comes from having your own perceived space. I'm not sure what we would call these purely hypothetical half-wall workspaces--these "cubicles," if you will--though....

Double_a_92 9y ago

I often have the opposite problem. We are like 15 people in our office, and some are very sound sensitive. I feel like I can't even properly discuss things with my other colleagues or even peer program out of fear of disturbing the others. If you are really that sensitive get earplugs, instead of cussing at others!

egeozcan 9y ago
It's not them being sensitive or that you want to discuss things. This is the problem: > We are like 15 people in our office I wouldn't even be able to read comics with so many people talking, let alone do my job.

the6threplicant 9y ago

Hopefully when we start using voice activation as much as we now use the mouse, then the open office space will become a thing of the past. One can hope.