Multiple Monitors Increase Productivity

eggoeater writes "An systematic study conducted by NEC-Mitsubishi, ATI Technologies and the University of Utah has concluded that the use of multiple monitors in the workplace increases productivity. The study is discussed on Tom's Hardware, EE Times, and there's a detailed press release on NEC-Mitsubishi. For those of us who use multi-monitors, this is not shocking. But maybe now that it's official, IT managers will view it as a good investment and not just for gamers."

Comments

What about widescreens...?

[Sodakar]

It's a shame that the study didn't include replacing a standard 4x3 aspect-ratio display with a wide-screen display. In my personal experience, I've found that the extra width is what really helps -- not so much the ability to have two desktops visible at once. Two 17" displays are better than one 17" display, but one 24" widescreen display is even better still. (no break in the middle, consistent color correction across the entire width, great for wide photo-editing, long code that wraps, and of course, ultra-long syslogs)

Of course, two standard displays are far more economical than one widescreen display... :(

Though the results of the study are undoubtedly true, I find it amusing that this study is put on by a display company, graphics company, and a university that most likely got freebies or kickbacks.

News at 7: "Dell Computer, Intel, and UCLA have found that multiple processors can increase productivity."

Re:What about widescreens...?

[Kombat]

Two 17" displays are better than one 17" display, but one 24" widescreen display is even better still.

I disagree. I use 2 17" monitors at work, and I would vastly prefer this to a single, wide monitor. The reason is simple. Sure, if I had one, 24" wide monitor, I could fit quite a bit of stuff on the screen (almost as much as my pair of 17's). However, I'd have to manually manipulate the window sizes in order to make the most of that space.

With 2 monitors, each monitor is its own desktop. If I have an app on one screen and I maximize it, it instantly and automatically fills that entire, single monitor, leaving the other monitor untouched. I can then do the same thing to another app in the other window with another app, and with two easy clicks, I now have both my apps each making maximum use of my viewing space, without having to carefully drag window borders around manually.

This may sound like a small thing, but the few seconds you waste clicking on window borders and resizing quickly becomes an irritating and unnecessary annoyance.

But the tasks I found benefitted most from dual monitors was when I was learning something new. I could open up the API/User Guide/Tutorial/Examples in one window, while having another entire 17" monitor available to actually run the app I was learning, and follow through the tutorial without having to constantly switch virtual desktops, minimize/maximize, or ALT-TAB around.

I can't imagine going back to a single monitor, regardless of its size.

Re:Any excuse is a good excuse....

[mwood]

Yeah, until some PHB decides that, if 2 monitors = productivity gain, 4 monitors = 2x productivity gain, and I wind up with more monitors than I can attend to. Like the famous Western Electric study where they kept tinkering with the lights until they discovered that the productivity gain came from workers feeling more appreciated because somebody was always coming 'round to adjust the lights, and was not correlated to the experimental parameter at all.

That said, I'm not surprised at this result. One monitor simply can't have eight or ten pages usefully viewable at the same time, which is the way I work when I'm deep in the coding and a major reason that I still prefer paper documents for serious creative work. I've often said that what I need is not an ugrade from 17" to 19" and 1024x768 to 1280x1024, but one to 4'x3' at 10240x7680. (Or VR goggles and gloves that can simulate a wall-sized display and the keyboard to drive it.... :-)

Re:what's the use?

[pla]

I've never "gotten" dual head. I guess two 17" monitors running at 1400x1050 are somewhat cheaper than a 21" monitor running at 2048x1536, and they both display about the same # of pixels, but doesn't the seam running down the middle of the dual-head setup really suck?

You think about it the wrong way. Don't think in terms of "cheaper", think in terms of "on the screen but not in my way". (I'll write the rest of this from a Windows point of view, but all the ideas apply equally well to X)

Consider what you normally use a computer for at work... Perhaps you code, or use Word/Excel, or whatever. But most likely you have some primary app open most of the time, to which you want to give as much screen real-estate as possible.

But, having other programs open at the same time, such as Winamp, task manager, a graphing calculator, perhaps a small notepad window for jotting things down - All of those you would normally need to switch back and forth with your primary screen-sucking app. Personally, I usually have some development environment filling my primary screen, and find it very annoying to keep finding my calculator, plug in some numbers, switch back, repeat 200 times a day.

Well, a second monitor makes all of that a non issue. I have my 21" primary monitor taken up with the dev tools, and the 15" secondary keeps what I mentioned (Winamp, taskman, graphcalc, notepad, and usually one or two other random programs) instantly accessible, without having to minimize anything or go searching on the taskbar.

So try thinking of dual monitors in terms of dual-but-separate desktops, rather than a single large desktop (where yes, the line down the middle would drive most people nuts).


I'd like to see this study conducted with a constant amount of $ invested in either a 2-head or 1-head rig, and see which comes out on top. I'm betting on 1-head.

Given a choice between a 19" and a 15", or a single 21", I'd gladly take the former over the latter, hands down.

Additionally, consider the cost from another angle - Most people working with a computer 8 hours a day will have at least a 19" monitor, frequently even a panel rather than a CRT, often connected to a high-end video card. You can easily blow a grand just on getting a decent primary display for a workstation-class machine (and far more for a high-end graphics oriented system - The CAD guys at my last employer had systems where the display hardware alone cost over ten grand).

So, if for another $100, a tenth the price of the primary display, you can boost productivity by a significant margin, would you skimp on such a small amount?

Re:Any excuse is a good excuse....

[Acidic_Diarrhea]

"(as the only linux user in the company)"

Having multiple desktops is an option that Windows users have with a minimum of hassle. In fact, the video card I bought to facilitate my two-monitor setup came with the software to allow this to happen. What I think you fail to realize that multiple desktops have their place and multiple monitors have their place. The situation you describe is all well and good but when working, I often need to work on multiple files at the same time, or at least have a file open for reference, and being able to view that file while working on another is useful. Your statement about maximizing and minimizing windows is merely a suggestion that the employees you speak of don't know how to best utilize a multiple monitor setup.

Tell me which is quicker. I am working on file_A, which is dependent on some work in file_B. I can either:
A) Constantly switch back and forth between virtual desktops everytime I need to check something in file_B, process that information, and then switch back to the desktop with file_A to begin work on that file again. OR
B) Have both file_A and file_B open at the same time on different monitors where if I need to check a dependency in file_B, all that's required is a slight headturn.

So which is faster? Multiple monitors and multiple desktops is what I use and I find they compliment each other nicely BUT if I had to choose one, I'd take multiple monitors.

Re:Any excuse is a good excuse....

[laklare]

Too bad this study is tainted by the fact that monitor manufacturers did it.

Monitors are so cheap now and you can find them abandoned all over the place (Goodwill, my basement). Since all you need to set up multiple monitors on a PC is an AGP card and a PCI card (for two monitors), it's very easy. PCI video cards are old and cheap. Two PCI cards won't work I think because they both try to be the primary video card.

My PC is set up now with three monitors because I have a dual output AGP card and a PCI card w/TV out. The PCI card I use only for output to my TV (for movies, simpsons, etc.). Now that I have a faster machine, I can work on two monitors with the third (TV) showing a full screen movie. Or, I could have the left one show the Milkdrop plugin for winamp, the middle one for "work", and the right (TV) for a movie. What was this article about...oh yeah...productivity.

Bottom line is, I haven't done any work in my bedroom for months. I'm not sure I could with any number of monitors. Usually I have to use my laptop with a tiny screen in a secluded space with no distractions to accomplish anything. Even though I agree that multiple monitors COULD increase my productivity (if I didn't use them for distractions), they actually generate distractions mostly. If I'm doing something simple, I'm annoyed at how much desktop space i have to manage. If I'm doing something that needs space (like taking notes in one monitor from a web page in the other), all that monitor is very overwhelming. It's a lot of electromagnetism...I just want to shut them off (I recommend using black wallpaper on your desktops). Sometimes I feel inclined to put stuff on the second monitor just because I can. Then I feel inclined to look at it.

Bottom line:
Multimonitors is a cool thing to have. It's very useful if you're doing research, comparing documents, or if you need to know exactly when something finishes and you don't like switching tasks just to find out. Be warned, however. It is easy to block out everything outside the computer (real world) when you're at a computer. It's a lot harder to ignore what's going on on one monitor on the computer when you're staring at the other one.

My short list of computer productivity improvements I'd be annoyed to work without:
multimonitor
dvorak
left hand mouse
low keyboard
head-height monitors
low brightness, high contrast
background lighting
well-placed speakers
foot rest
good adjustable chair
pad for kneeling when you're tired of sitting
house plants
window outside with far-away objects
hand exerciser/stress ball
a door (doesn't in a cubicle)

It' just bandwidth

[Phat_Tony]

Of course it raises productivity, it raises the most important bandwidth limitation in the whole system: the one between the user & the machine.

Hands using the keyboard & mouse going one way, and eyes watching the monitor going the other way, is a pretty limited interface. (Yeah, I know there are speakers and printers and such, but most of the information channel is keyboard, mouse, monitor.) Not a lot has happened on the keyboard/mouse end to raise input bandwidth since around 1984, but the output bandwith had grown a lot, from hopeless 10" VGA monitors (or TV's) to having things like 2 21" 1600 x 1200 monitors.

Higher monitor resolution (that's total resolution, not just screen density) makes a huge difference in how fast and how well you can obtain and comprehend information from your machine.

The GUI helps with this too- GUI's are just compression algorithms to compress information in order to pump it through the narrow bandwidth of the screen-eye-brain pipeline. It uses more machine resources in order to present things in a manner that lets your brain recognize things faster, because brains are better built for dealing with graphics than text in many ways.

More monitor space also increaeses input by compressing it (or eliminating useless steps)- if you can see more windows at once, you spend less time using your narrow input pipeline to rearrange things, and more time inputing directly where you want.

See Edward Tufte, who is always upset about people tossing out bandwidth in stupid interface design. Notably, he bashes web browsers, which usually use screen space up on
1- the OS's menu bar & other widgets
2- the web browser's menu bar, toolbar, link bar, & other widgets
3- the sites' title bar, ad banner, navigation bar, sidebar, etc.

This often leaves a couple of square inches of screen space to cram in the information on the site you're actually trying to get too, mostly wasting huge portions of your bandwidth, especially on lower resolution monitors, because all the other widgets stay the same size, and it's the content space that shrinks down to the size of a pea.