Desk Height Calculator - Sitting, Standing, Chair, Monitor

Desk, chair and screen heights from your own height

A man of 5 ft 10 in in shoes with a 1 inch sole types most comfortably with the keyboard at about 28 inches, sits on a seat set to about 18 inches and, at a standing desk, needs the keyboard near 44 inches. Those three numbers are what this desk height calculator puts on top, followed by the top and center of the screen for sitting and standing. The body dimensions come from the US Army anthropometric survey ANSUR II, and the way each one is used comes from the OSHA eTool for computer workstations.

Four numbers that set up a workstation

Elbow height

Keyboard and mouse go here. OSHA: elbows about the height of the keyboard, forearms roughly parallel to the floor.

Back of the knee

Sets the seat. The whole sole on the floor, the back of the knee slightly higher than the seat.

Eye level

The top of the screen sits at it or slightly below. Lower still with bifocals.

20-40 in

The viewing distance OSHA prefers, 50 to 100 cm, with the screen center 15 to 20 degrees below the eyes.

What you enter

Units - inches or centimeters, used for every field.
Body data - fits for men, for women, or for both together.
Height without shoes - 55.5 to 78.5 in (141 to 199 cm), the range the survey covers.
Shoe sole and heel - added to every height, because the survey measured people barefoot. Enter 0 for socks.
Viewing distance - eyes to screen, 20 to 40 in.
Bifocal or progressive glasses - yes adds the OSHA note on a lower screen.
Current desk height - optional; compared with your sitting keyboard height.

Six people, six setups

Every row is a run of the calculator. Shoes are 1 inch unless the row says otherwise; the screen figures assume a 25 inch viewing distance.

Person	Seat	Keyboard, sitting	Screen top, sitting	Keyboard, standing
Woman, 5 ft 0 in, socks, 22 in away	14 in	23 in	42 in	36.5 in
Woman, 5 ft 4 in	16.5 in	25.5 in	45.5 in	40.5 in
Both sexes, 5 ft 8 in	17.5 in	27 in	48.5 in	42.5 in
Man, 5 ft 10 in	18 in	28 in	50 in	44 in
Man, 6 ft 3 in, 28 in away	19.5 in	30 in	53.5 in	47.5 in
Both sexes, 175 cm, 2 cm shoes, 65 cm away	45 cm	69 cm	125 cm	109 cm

Patterns hiding in those rows

Fifteen inches of height, seven of keyboard. From the 5 ft 0 in woman in socks to the 6 ft 3 in man in 1 inch shoes the sitting keyboard moves from 23 to 30 inches, the standing one from 36.5 to 47.5. In the survey data standing elbow height follows stature much more closely than seated elbow height does.

One desk rarely fits two people. Give the 5 ft 4 in woman a 29 inch desk and the calculator says it is 3.5 inches above her sitting keyboard height: raise the chair by that much and add a footrest of about 3.5 inches. The 5 ft 10 in man at the same desk is 1 inch off; the 5 ft 0 in woman in socks, 6.

The screen center is geometry, not anatomy. At 25 inches, 15 to 20 degrees below eye level is 6.7 to 9.1 inches lower than the eyes. Move the screen back to 40 inches and the drop grows to 10.7 to 14.6 inches.

Some estimates are tighter than others. Standing eye height follows stature almost exactly (spread about 0.3 in either way), while seated elbow height varies about 0.9 in either way, because torso and upper-arm proportions differ more than overall height does.

Where the estimates come from

The ANSUR II public data from Penn State's OpenLab holds measurements of 4,082 men and 1,986 women of the US Army, taken barefoot in millimeters. For each group the calculator uses a straight-line fit of stature to five dimensions:

Setting	ANSUR II measurements used	Spread, men / women
Seat height	popliteal height	13.3 / 14.0 mm
Keyboard, sitting	popliteal height + elbow rest height	23.5 / 23.0 mm
Screen top, sitting	popliteal height + eye height sitting	16.2 / 16.8 mm
Keyboard, standing	acromial height - shoulder-elbow length	17.1 / 14.9 mm
Screen top, standing	stature - (sitting height - eye height sitting)	8.6 / 7.6 mm

The spread is the standard deviation around the fit, so about two in three people of a given height fall within it; the result shows that band as "most people your height". It is a population estimate. A short torso or long forearms move your own numbers, which is why the last word belongs to the chair: feet flat, forearms level, eyes at the top of the screen.

Who gets the most out of it

Buyers of a standing desk check whether its height range reaches the standing keyboard figure. Anyone sharing a desk can see who needs the footrest. People with a fixed desk learn whether the chair or the surface has to move, and bifocal wearers get the reminder that their screen belongs lower than everyone else's.

Desk height questions

How tall should a standing desk be for my height?

At your standing elbow height, so the keyboard sits where the elbows hang. For a 5 ft 10 in man in 1 inch shoes that is about 44 inches, for a 5 ft 4 in woman about 40.5. If the keyboard rests on the desk, subtract its thickness from the desk top.

What if my desk is too high and does not adjust?

Raise the chair until the elbows reach the keyboard, then put a footrest under the feet, as OSHA suggests when the feet no longer rest on the floor. Enter the desk height and the calculator gives the footrest height. A height-adjustable keyboard tray is the other OSHA route.

How high should the monitor be?

OSHA puts the top of the screen at or slightly below eye level and the center 15 to 20 degrees below horizontal eye level, at 20 to 40 inches away. With bifocals the screen goes lower than that, to keep the neck in a comfortable position.

Why does it ask about shoes?

The survey measured everyone barefoot, and every height in the result is measured from the floor. A 1 inch sole lifts the knee, the elbow and the eyes by the same inch.

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