Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity | Hacker News Reader

Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity

blogs.wsj.com

27 pointsblackswan21 comments

" There is an upper limit, however:"

Agreed. I had a 30-inch Dell for about 7 months and eventually downgraded to a 24-inch Dell and I'm much happier.

30-inches is more time spent moving your neck around to see the rest of the screen and more space spent taking up your desk, that in my case is only 2 feet deep so being so close to such a large monitor is a bit awkward.

There's a reason why trading floors have three, four, or more monitors per computer. Where I work, most traders have four, but the FX and commodities guys have sometimes as many as eight monitors (one row of four above, one row of four below) tied to two computers at a single desk.

I was blown away a few days ago when PG demoed Viaweb on a rickety mac laptop with a 12 inch screen. It just didn't make sense to me.

Two of the biggest reasons to get a MacBookPro:

1. The screen is best in show.

2. The video card can power an external 30 inch monitor.

Big reason not to:

Extreme portability is awesome.

i don't understand how a 12" is more portable than a 15". my bag fits them both the same, so they are equally portable. to me, there are three levels of portability: pocket, bag, and luggable. anything from an eee to a 17" fits in the bag category.

Weight.

My Dell's an Inspirion and was top of the line, on par with a MacBook Pro. It weighs like 5kg (vs a 1kg LifeBook) and is anything -BUT- a mobile computer. The battery lasts 2 hours with internet, 3 hours without. Not to mention, with upgraded graphics drivers (which dell won't provide) you only get about 20 minutes before it freaks out and the monitor stops displaying.

I'm travelling in just over two weeks and I have to revert back to old drivers, which don't do onboard T&L but a simple upgrade allows them to perform like a dream. At 1440x900 and the FPS it runs games at, I think it's actually beating the nVidia card the same model came supplied with... when they worked I mean, because they made a recall and switched them to ATI.

Right now I'm looking at a nice refurbished MacBook, or maybe a LifeBook; if I can justify the price for the usability. It's actually spurred arguments between me and my girlfriend, she likes a large screen on her laptop and I've come to disdain it, perhaps two years in college will set her straight.

Desktop = Power. Laptop = Usability. Those are my new golden rules for buying.

Yes, and my bag doesn’t fit the 15" laptop. Because my bag is more portable than your bag. Alternately, I can find a bag that fits a 20" iMac in it, with the keyboard. That bag fits any of the three. What’s your point?

This seems like it should have been studied long ago. I guess it takes a while for academia to get new monitors (and notice that they have bigger ones available).

I remember reading a study by Microsoft about the number of monitors vs. productivity. From what I recall, they found that 3 is the optimal number.

Likewise I usually run 3 to 4 Spaces in OS X.

Here's to hoping my bosses read this. There are so many engineers here working on single 18 or 19 inch monitors it's not even funny. I consider myself lucky to have two 19 inchers...

But it's still very cramped compared to my set up at home.

Anyone know where the study is? I want to know if they did widescreen vs. flatscreen, or if they tried out more than 2, and what 'jobs' they had the subjects do.

Yeah, a 26'' monitor would give you no benefit over a 24'' monitor as it likely has the same resolution. If you want an increase in resolution you have to go to 30''. I'd try the same task again with a 24'' and a 30'' and see if there are any differences.

My boss is great about monitors, and I even work in academia. He uses a 30" LCD (as do two other professors) and most of our other faculty/staff (with the exception of the admin staff) have at least two 19"s or larger.

I use three with 3, with x2vnc. Linux in the middle on a 22", os x on the right on a 19, and windows on the left with a 19. It works wonderfully and I have instant access to multiple os's and browsers.

In other news, computers run better with electricity.

It might be common sense to us, but some companies refuse to spend more money simply because their employees FEEL they would be more productive. It's a good thing to actually prove this with some serious studies.

> tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets

The limiting factor in productivity for knowledge workers, excluding those working with graphics, is not mechanical tasks like copying and pasting.

This study is probably valid if you answer phones in a call center. I doubt it has much bearing if you spend most of your time thinking when in front of the monitor.

I think it applies pretty well to programming. It involves switching between files, and between the IDE, console, web, debug and application views. Emacs makes a lot of this easy but it helps to have more available as simply moving your eyes from one place to the other on the screen is faster than even a few keystrokes.

I'm curious though what the time savings would have been if the test subjects were using Emacs.

Frequently switching b/w views or files is a real pain point for me. I prefer to be able to see as much code as possible at a glance. One reason why I hate 50 classes in 50 files of 5 lines each when working with Java.

I wouldn't say big screens have no impact when it comes to programming, but that it has certainly lower impact. In my experience, the smaller the screen the more organized you have to be.

After years of using small monitors I found myself much more organized than friends who always used big screens. Their screens are really messy, while I keep mine real neat (with help of my window manager, my editor, etc). On a bigger screens I feel more confortable, no doubt, but I don't think it changes my productivity that much.

One downsides of big screens to productivity is that with bigger screens people are able to keep chat screens on the same window they do their work. I supose that makes it easier for the guy to get distracted on chat.

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