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Desk height is not a number you look up. It is set from your own elbow height, and that varies between people of the same overall height because it depends on torso and forearm proportions.
Set the chair first
You cannot set desk height correctly against a badly adjusted chair, because the chair determines where your elbows are. Get the seat height right — feet flat, thighs roughly parallel to the floor — before touching the desk.
Then find your elbow height
Sit properly, shoulders relaxed and down, upper arms hanging vertically, forearms roughly horizontal. The height of your elbows above the floor is your seated desk height.
Set the desk so its surface is at that height, or very slightly below it. A desk slightly too low is far more comfortable than one slightly too high: a high desk forces your shoulders up all day, and that produces neck and upper-back complaints that people usually blame on their monitor.
Standing height is a separate measurement
Stand up, relax your shoulders, let your arms hang, and bend your elbows to horizontal. Measure again. That is your standing desk height, and it is not simply your seated height plus a fixed offset.
Then check the monitor
Desk height and monitor height are separate adjustments and setting one does not set the other. Once the desk is right, the top of your usable screen area should sit at or slightly below seated eye level, roughly an arm’s length away.
If the desk cannot move
Raise the chair until your elbows meet the desk, then add a footrest. This is the correct fix rather than a workaround — it restores the thigh and lower-back geometry that sitting too low would destroy.
Free tool Desk Ergonomics Calculator — Desk, seat and monitor heights from your body height.Questions people ask
What if my desk height cannot be changed?
Then set the chair correctly relative to the desk and fix your feet, not your desk. Raise the chair until your elbows are at desk height with your shoulders relaxed, and add a footrest to restore proper thigh and lower-back position. A fixed desk that is too high is workable this way; a fixed desk that is too low cannot be corrected by the chair and needs risers under its legs.
Should my wrists rest on the desk while typing?
Not while actively typing. Your wrists should float, with the movement coming from your forearms, and a wrist rest is for the pauses between typing rather than for support during it. Resting your wrist on a surface while typing puts the load on the carpal tunnel at exactly the moment the tendons are moving through it.
