prototypes, and got people to overcome their qualms, the scores
began to inch up. By the time Herman Miller was ready to go to
market, the comfort scores were, in fact, above 8. That was the
good news.
The bad news? Just about everyone thought the chair was a
monstrosity. “From the beginning, the aesthetic scores lagged
way behind the comfort scores,” said Bill Dowell, who was
research lead on the Aeron. “This was an anomaly. We’ve tested
thousands and thousands of people sitting in chairs, and one of
the strongest correlations we’ve always found is between
comfort and aesthetics. But here it didn’t happen. The comfort
scores got above eight, which is phenomenal. But the aesthetic
scores started out between two and three and never got above
six in any of our prototypes. We were quite perplexed and not
unworried. We’d had the Equa chair. That chair was
controversial, too. But it was always seen as beautiful.”
In late 1993, as they prepared to launch the chair, Herman
Miller put together a series of focus groups around the country.
They wanted to get some ideas about pricing and marketing and
make sure there was general support for the concept. They
started with panels of architects and designers, and they were
generally receptive. “They understood how radical the chair