[JabavuAdams]

> I'm a big fan of bull pen type environments, where it's wide open spaces and everyone is together with no walls between.

Visual and audio noise.

They're really bad for productivity of creators. They're good for managers / coordinators / investors.

The standard argument that "you can wear headphones" doesn't work for serious design work. Pounding music is great for grinding through list-ish stuff, but not for creativity.

It's like sleep deprivation. People who are sleep deprived will insist "I'm fine -- I just need a coffee", but their performance is much lower than those who are well rested.

EDIT> I'm not responding to the over-the-shoulder question here. I find it very distracting to see others' faces, though, e.g. with back-to-back monitors. Most of us are wired to pay attention to faces, so they cause a lot of visual noise.

At this point in my career, open-concept offices with > 4 or so people are a deal breaker. It makes me hate programming.