
Where we're going, we don't need headphones - tckr
https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/2017/06/Where-we-are-going-we-dont-need-headphones
======
valuearb
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
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.)

~~~
YZF
Offices do not mean having each person locked in their room never interacting
with anyone else. They mean you can close the door and be able to focus on
something.

In my experience you get a lot more interaction when people have private
offices, or at least cubes. It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a
discussion. Easier than let's go find a meeting room so we don't disturb
everyone. It's also pretty easy to call other people in as needed and have an
impromptu meeting without needing to book a room for that and without
disturbing others. Not to mention other technologies like e-mail, messaging
etc.

The most collaborative places I worked in are those where people had offices
and the least collaborative ones have open plans. Anecdotal but there you have
it.

Let's face it, open plan offices are about reducing cost and pretending to be
collaborative. It's the "Agile" of offices and I don't mean it in a good way.

~~~
yakult
>It's easy to walk into someone's office and have a discussion.

Certainly less easy than joining in on a conversation you overhear while
sitting at your desk.

What we have here is disgreement over the optimal 'activation energy' for
social interactions that produces the best work. This parameter depends on all
kinds of factors, e.g. the type of work and work culture. What we need is a
workflow that optimizes this parameter for a given office.

IOW, somebody needs to come up with a cost function and run gradient descent
on it.

~~~
gfodor
It's a little out there, but I think VR workspaces will potentially provide
such a method. Currently the iteration cost is too high. (For example it could
involve rearranging desks, tearing down walls, buying equipment, etc.) VR
opens the door to a malleable workspace that still comes close to pairty with
face to face communications (it is not there today but most likely will be in
a few generations.)

~~~
yakult
For large companies, I can imagine using new branch offices for a/b testing.

A while ago I read a comment here about a university that, instead of paving
roads to a new campus, just had grass everywhere. A semester later they paved
over all the parts where the grass died from all the foot traffic.

I wonder if something like that would be workable? Have easily reconfigurable
panels and furniture, encourage the staff to arrange it however they like,
wait six months, then standardize/remove pain points/make permanent?

~~~
benji-york
That's an interesting thought. Here's another: why standardize? Each team's
needs are likely to be different and may change over time.

------
erentz
> "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
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
How did you train yourself to fall asleep on an airplane?

~~~
freehunter
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.

------
nulagrithom
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.

~~~
kinkrtyavimoodh
>> 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.

~~~
nulagrithom
> I think people who assume that sitting with headphones on all the time means
> they should never be 'disturbed' are being a bit uncharitable.

I stop feeling charitable when I start missing deadlines and can't get any
work done because of constant interruptions.

Is there a more clear way that I can signal I need fewer interruptions than a
closed door and headphones? Just a couple hours each day without being
interrupted would be great.

~~~
Double_a_92
What do you work that you as a single person have deadlines? Usually in SW
development those are as a team. So it doesn't matter if you help your
teammates?

~~~
nulagrithom
Solo dev

------
voidwtf
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

~~~
arkitaip
We should all embrace intersectional office space personalities and that no
office of the future can belong to the future if it doesn't accommodate
different types of people, work, social and personal needs.

p.s. tabs

~~~
jaggederest
I've always been confused that people will set up 6-7 different kinds of areas
in their house, but expect an office to be wall-to-wall cubicles with a
restroom tacked on.

Let's see if we can list out some of the things to do in an office:

* Focused solo work

* Focused small group work

* Making phone calls - one person

* Making group phone calls and teleconferences

* Small group meetings

* Large group meetings

* Handling documents and records

* Food preparation

* Eating areas for individuals and small groups ("cafe")

* Eating areas for large groups ("cafeteria")

* Relaxation

* Reference and reading

* Loose teamwork e.g. sales and support

* Client/vendor meetings - small and large scale

* Shipping and receiving

* Maintenance

* Storage

I wish there were names for these kind of spaces beyond agglomerating
descriptions onto generic terms.

I think if you say "Living room", "Kitchen" or "Bedroom" most people have an
idea of what happens in that room. "Medium conference #3" is less descriptive.

------
natch
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.

~~~
valuearb
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.

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

------
pklausler
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
or maybe the problem is that you can't handle people? "Inconsiderate
primates?" AirPods underneath muffs? But why?

~~~
pklausler
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.

------
gingerlime
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.

~~~
INTPenis
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
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?

~~~
INTPenis
I got a recommendation from a friend that his Bose in-ear active noise-
cancelling phones were really good. Haven't tried them myself, can only
forward his recommendation.

------
gaza3g
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.

------
noahdesu
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
A couple solutions: one man offices, working from home.

------
burntrelish1273
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.

------
wry_discontent
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.

~~~
valuearb
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.

------
chipotle_coyote
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....

------
nemetroid
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/)

------
julenx
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-
peo...](https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/19/where-do-these-people-get-
their-unoriginal-ideas/)

------
polygot
> " 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
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.

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

------
aarohmankad
> "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...](https://rradczewski.github.io/ymmv/assets/office_noise_noisy_invocations.png)

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.

------
Double_a_92
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
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.

------
wpietri
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)

------
sabujp
> 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.

------
rjeli
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_
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
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.

------
the6threplicant
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.

------
tootie
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.

