Time to ask your boss for a 24inch screen. A Wall Street Journal blog has just reported that Bigger Computer Monitors = More Productivity.
OK, most of us probably knew that already, but could we prove it? The WSJ story is based on a University of Utah study that
tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen. (The order of the tasks and the order of computer configurations were assigned randomly.)
In theory, the bigger screen "could save 2.5 hours a day".
What's particularly interesting is that your screen can be too big, which I hadn't thought about, never having had that big a screen.
I also note that having two screens means taking a productivity hit compared with using one. This isn't a surprise. However, if you already have one screen then there are clear benefits to adding another, even if they are not quite as big as junking it and buying a bigger one.
The study was sponsored by NEC, but Utah professor James Anderson "doesn't care who businesses buy their monitors from - he just wants businesses to realize that the right monitor can make someone more productive."
NEC's press release says:
Conducted throughout March and April 2003, the Productivity and Multi-Screen Displays study is based on the responses of one hundred and eight university and non university personnel, who participated in this comparison of single monitor, multi-monitor configurations.
