Just to clarify on "open-back visibility", it means that people can see you from behind (ie your back is facing the door/ open space rather than a wall, and by extension it means that they can see your screen), right?
If that's the case, I agree with you, but I'd like to see more details on how/why it is the case. Do you by any chance have any more evidences?
Re:The Open-Office Trap
by michaelochurch on Wednesday December 03, 2014 @05:39PM
(#8696813)
I don't have papers on it. Just years of painful experience, but something I've noticed is that (a) people with walls at their back are generally more productive, and (b) successful or powerful people usually choose seating arrangements that give them a barrier. Visibility from behind suggests low social status and makes people feel "watched".
I can confirm that with a couple dozen n=1 anecdotes. I used to have a mirror on my monitor so I could see people coming up behind me. That calmed the lizard brain down a bit, but I was still distracted every time somebody walked behind me. I've known dozens of programmers who also hate having their back exposed because it's a distraction.
Also, open-back visibility (that is, being visible from behind) does more damage than the noise itself, and there are no noise-canceling headphones for that.
Office space isn't that expensive, compared to the productivity loss of having everyone work in a crappy space. (Compared to a traditional office, open-plan saves about $300-450/month per employee in San Francisco, Class A commercial real estate. It's less if you're in Oakland, Brooklyn, or the Midwest) Open-plan is just another case of crappy HR (the norm in tech, sadly) "cutting" costs in a way that actually externalizes them; there are marginal savings on office space, but productivity plummets.