Slashdot Mirror
Reducing Eye Strain?
torok asks: "Recently my optometrist prescribed corrective lenses, which is new for me. Being a programmer and staring at a screen all day doesn't help anyone's eyes, of course, but the default white backgrounds appear to be particularly troublesome. I wonder if others on Slashdot have noticed the same thing, and what they've done to help alleviate the problem. Is a grey or black background with white or grey text easier on the eyes, or worse due to lack of contrast or imperfect foreground colors? What about different lighting conditions and, of course, LCD vs. 100Hz CRT?"
Well, You might start here
In particular all of your questions are answered here , the second entry on Google's list.
On a more practical note, assuming that your existing monitor and video card are in good working order, and that the monitor is positioned properly, the one thing that you need to do is to focus your eyes somewhere other than your monitor at regular intervals - say every five minutes.
Look at the wall, look out the window - anything to break from focusing only at that screen 18 inches in front of you.
Understand that the lighting should be dimmer than the usual office setting.
And sad to say, your need for eye-glasses may just be a reflection of the aging process, not your work environment.
Besides, who says glasses aren't a good thing?
Three Squirrels
We do this every six months or so.
Find a timer, set it to 45 minutes, and each time it goes off, get up and walk around for a couple of minutes. Make sure while you're walking, you try to focus on something in the distance.
Problem solved.
(not satisfied? more)
[o]_O
I always find some some darker colors help my eyes immensely. I use a black background with some dark green text, and I'm sure not to have high contrasting colors among the code for different syntax hilighting. I'll usualy get rid of bright reds, yellows, and greens, and stick to more dull colors. Also, using ambient light seems to help in my case. Point your lights, if you can, towards the walls and use the light that bounces from there instead of the direct lightbulb. I find this usually eases my eye strain. I've worn glasses since I was a freshman in high school, but lost them about 3 years ago. I've never gotten a replacement pair, but I've noticed my eyes are feeling much better than before when I work in the above conditions.
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
There's an option in Word XP (maybe other versions as well, I am not familiar) to set the background to Blue and the text to White, in the Preferences. I find this can really help with eye strain when working on a document for a prolonged period of time.
Hope this helps. While it might not be personally applicable, most people do use Word XP so I thought it could be a possible answer.
"There's no success like failure, and failure's no success at all."
- Bob Dylan
Old school Human Interface guidelines said that yellow text on a blue background was the easiest on the eyes.
It's still an option in MS Word from the good ol' text days.
Other tips (Walk around 5-10 mins. every 45 minutes or so.) have already been mentioned.
I dont see this mentioned often... I use 1280x1024 instead of 1600x1200. The text is larger, and my eyes dont feel as bad after a long 12-16 hour day. I also find staring at a 132x55 black console is easier to read than bright white.
Also, a higher refresh helps, I find 85hz the lowest I'd go.
A programmer friend swears by having a non contrasting environment with his pc. Meaning, if one has a white background one ought to be working in a well lit bright room. If you find yourself in a darker environment, then darken the background. I don't know. Personally I prefer darker backgrounds.
"He was a wise man who invented beer." - Plato
A couple tips:
1. Bright white text on a black background. Yellow or green also works. Less glare, good contrast, etc. Great for x-terms. Harder in Word. Find what works for you.
2. Dialup your font sizes and/or zoom in. My friends used to tease me about using "fonts for the blind" on my x-terms, but I like not squinting and leaning into the screen to read stuff. Yes, you cannot fit as much stuff on the screen, but what you can see is readable.
3. Bigger is better. Get at least a 21" CRT monitor or a 19" LCD. It helps make (2) easier -- you're less tempted to use small fonts to see everything you need to see.
4. LCD's seem to experience less glare, be clearer, flicker-free, and have a myriad of other benefits. I like them, but I still appreciate a nice, big flat-screen Trinitron CRT monitor. The moral of the story is to spend a few extra bucks for bigger, clearer, and higher-quality. Money comes and goes, but you only lose your eyesight once.
5. Your eye doctor can prescribe "computer glasses". For the older folks among us, this can be a huge help. The problem is that most computer users sit about 3' from the screen. This is too close for your distance/driving glasses but too far away for your reading glasses. Finding a mid-range prescription can make a huge difference and reduce eye-strain.
6. Don't work in the dark. Don't work under really bright lights. I find the best computer lighting to be just a little too dark to comfortable read by.
7. Follow all those ergonomics suggestions that your HR department hands out. For example, get up and walk around every hour or two. This gives you a chance to stretch, focus your eyes at a distance, etc. Drink more water -- it's good for you and you'll have to pee more, which makes you get up more. You'll actually be more productive, despite the breaks.
I personally use green on black, with a red cursor.
There is method in this:
1) it uses a single gun on CRTs which means there are fewer alignment problems even on shonky monitors,
2) it's typically the brightest phosphor, on CRTs, and I think the brightest filter on LCDs too, to my eyes,
3) the human eye picks up green very well, (might explain (2) to some extent),
4) picking a single colour means spectacle lens-wearers don't get chromatic aberrations which arise when looking at an angle through the lens.
The other thing I'd say is, pay extra if necessary for spectacle lenses with the anti-reflective coating. Ambient lighting glare on normal specs is a nightmare especially if you're using a screen all day and the coating does work.
...an Englishman in London.
Some people approach this question as if by making a few simple changes they could have avoided the need for correction, any by making them now they can [stop|reverse] the damage. That is not realistic. In most cases there is no damage that is causing the problem. It is just a fact of like that your eyes undergo drastic changes at certain times in your life. Many people suddenly start needing glasses at 10, and bifocals at 45. Get over it.. No exercise, diet, or strain elimination program will solve the problem for most people.
Yes you should eliminate eye strain, exercise regularly, eat healthy foods, and all those other things you keep hearing about. Not doing some of that is not the cause of your problems (though it might make it worse), so changing won't change your problem.
This might just be me, but staring at my Windows 2000 Laptop all days bugs the hell out of my eyes.
But I go home and stare at my XP desktop with Cleartype enable, and I have a *much* better time of it, even on the white-screen/black-text stuff.
Ed R.Zahurak
You know, oblivion keeps looking better every day.
I use light green on dark green. I prefer light-on-dark, and a 100% green color palette should be immune to the near-ubiquitous color convergence problems that CRTs have. Although I rarely use CRTs now, I still use the same colors.
"I use 1280x1024 instead of 1600x1200. "
boy do I hate this answer. Why? Because You can have big fonts with a hi-resolution. Just change your DPI settings and or your font settings. Windows and X-Windows will let you adjust your screen font to a larger size I am sure the Mac can as well. If you have two fonts of equal physical size the higher resolution one will be easier on the eyes.
Now having a higer refresh rate is a very good plan. I use the highest resolution that my monitor and video care will support at a high refresh rate.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
My tips from my experiences - or: how I prefer to work.
Bright Workspace: How: At home, I light my workspace with a 40W fluorescent ring lamp (made by Philips, type "TLE 40W/25") with a cold light color. Its advantage is that it illuminates the entire room very homogenous. The disadvantage is that food looks ugly, especially meat. I work on a white desk.At work, I have to live with two bands of linear flourescent lamps (22W each, I guess) each, shared for four tables. They produce enough light, but it is not as homogenous as the ring lamp. The desk at work has a light wood decor. Not optimal, but it works, because it is usually burried under heaps of paper.
Why: The low contrast between monitor and work environment reduces stress for the eyes. Try it: find a dark room and look onto a bright PC display (TFT or CRT) for a few minutes. I can't stand it longer than a few minutes. Proper Monitor: I prefer high quality CRTs. I own and use several Eizo Flexscans, 17 and 21 inches, and I recently ordered a new 17 inch Eizo Flexscan for my work place, even if (or perhaps because) the company policy is to buy low-cost TFTs. Sure, CRTs are large and ugly, and they need a lot of energy. But IMHO, the image on a good CRT is smoother than on a TFT. There is no color problem when you look from the side onto the CRT. CRTs don't have to interpolate the image to display different resolutions. Proper Resolution and Refresh Rate: For TFTs, look into the manual, but usually, you have to use 60 Hz refresh rate for best quality. And you have to use the native resolution of the display (see manual), or else it will interpolate the image or does not use the entire screen.
For CRTs, adjust the refresh rate to something between 85 Hz and 120 Hz. Depending on the light, there may be some flicker effects if the frequency of your light's power supply and the refresh rate are small integer multiples of a common base frequency: 50 Hz power supply for the light and 75 Hz refresh rate (2 : 3) cause massive flicker on my monitors, followed by a headache after a few minutes. Setting the refresh rate to 85 Hz removes this effect. Use the resolution recommended by the manufacturer of the monitor, or the next smaller resolution. Do not use the theoretical maximum resolution from the data sheet or the catalogue, this is the resolution that just does not kill the monitor, but it is not the optimum resolution.
I recommend to use not more than 1024 x 768 on a 17 inch CRT / 15 inch TFT. Buy a larger monitor if you permanently need higher resolutions. Proper Setup
Denken hilft.
But at 1600x1200 you have to haver a newer gfx card with a better RAMDAC to run at 85hz, if your monitor will even run at that rate.
Also, if you just change DPI, it doesnt change all programs, so things look off. DPI wont change fixed font's either, so any program like terminal programs (console anyone?) will still be 8point.
Windows have enough flaws, messing around with DPI and font settings is more pain than just dropping resolution.
control-option-splat-8 is your best friend. One simple key combination to switch the screen to inverse greyscale. (Unless, of course, you're in emacs. Then it'll start up the spellchecker or a game of textmode Quake or something.)
Personally, I think it's a lifesaver - 8 hours of using my computer without it, and I feel like I've spent the day staring into a flashlight.
There were already some excellent posts on this subject a week ago. See: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=130257&thresho ld=-1&commentsort=4&tid=129&mode=flat&cid=10864866 (the post starts out saying "IAAVN (I am a Visual Neuroscientist)")
At least you don't have a broken monitor emitting UV radiation or worse.
I bought a nice used monitor, took it home, and within 15 minutes my face was "prickly" and my eyes hurt.
Needless to say I switched that out real fast.
I have similar issues-- I can actually see monitor refresh rates at even 85hz where there's any white on the screen. What I've had to do to prevent further abuse to my eyes is to switch to a different color scheme. If using Win9x or 2k, I'll use a custom color set where the background is pure black and windows/widgets are blue for edges and dark blue for empty space/buttons, and yellow for text.
This gives a few problems on things that still insist on using white backgrounds, unfortunately, but there's not much you can do about that-- designers insist on using a 'paper-like' background, despite the fact it can be harmful.
On XP I'll use StyleXP to get a similar dark themed design if possible. If that's not an option, it's back to old-style look and the blue theme I always use. Every year or so I'll switch to a similar yellow-on-red theme for a bit to degauss the old eyes, but it's always one of the two. Hopefully this will help; it's about all I've been able to come up with, even having tried changing monitors.
Recently I purchased 2 19" LCD screens, and my comfort level has increaded dramatically over using 17" CRTs. I purchased one for work and one for home. They were costly, but the health of my eyes is very important for me (I still have 20/20 vision). And I believe I can claim 33% of the value of the at-work LCD on tax for 3 years (in Australia).
At work, we "sunbake" under a bright array of fluorescent tubes. I turned the brightness and contrast down to zero for maximim comfort (otherwise the LCD was too bright). I also set the default window background to light grey. This further reduces eye strain as the contrast of reading black text on a light grey background is less than that with a white background.
I am lucky, my desk is facing across the room. So periodically I do not have to look away because I do that naturally as people move and talk in the office.
Now I can stare at an LCD screeen for 14 hours a day (no I don't work for EA), without getting sore, tired, red eyes. I do not even need to use lubricating eye drops any more.
Now because this is Slashdot, it wouldn't be right to make a post and not suggest something related to open source software.... as a fellow code monkey, I use the Bitstream Vera fonts. The monospaced font is ideal (IMHO) for coding: http://www.gnome.org/fonts/
Good luck...
Things that help:
- make sure your eyes are not tense - whatever you do (learn to be aware of it)
- avoid/minimize repetitive computer work
- split the workload over many sessions
- eliminate glares/reflections from the screen
- take frequent breaks (every 15min)
- make sure to get enough sleep
- dust-free environment is very important
- get enough fluids (2-3L/day for most people)
- good, crisp display at minimum 80Hz refresh rate
- eye relaxing exorcizes can be very helpful
- don't forget to blink
- reduce the monitor brightness/contrast
- reduce the monitor color temperature setting to no more then 6000
- take high quality A, D and E vitamins
- stay fit, do sports in a regular basis
- a healthy diet helps enormously
- avoid fluorescent lights
Adjusting your working environment. Basically, I adjust everything I
see on the screen to be easy on the eyes. Window layout style,
fonts (color, type and size), background/foreground colors, etc.
Gray background and black font works best for me.
I find that natural lighting is by far the best (I hate the tone of incandecent lights, and florescent lighting flickers too much). However the wierd thing is that my 60Hz CRT is somehow fine for me. (It's the only way I can get 1280x1024 on my 17" monitor, and I can't live below 1280x1024)
Dear Rueger,
Thank you.
-RabidSquirrel
I've got to agree with you here. My problem has less to do with eye strain and more to do with sitting about four feet or so from the screen (I sit back with the keyboard in my lap). In my case, I use 1024x768 (I'm lagging back with a 17" CRT and really need to upgrade it) and still have to sit forward in some of the more font-unfriendly programs I end up running. This, by the way, was also the main reason I switched to Firefox since I found it scaled text MUCH better and easier than IE (ctrl-+/- are my best browsing buddies, though some sites insist on designs which frustrate this kind of adjustment). Using the FF image zoom plugin is just icing on a tasty cake.
for webpages, a zap white backgrounds bookmarklet will help you out
.
. hmmm
Black text on mid/light grey instead of white is my recommendation. Plenty of contrast and you avoid having to stare at a bright light-bulb thing all day. It's also not too radical. :) (This was the default colour scheme for AmigaOS 2.0 BTW. I don't know why everyone swears by white backgrounds these days).
Also LCDs are way better than CRTs. The image is just plain *sharper* and solid as a rock.
--
Simon
now I have justification!
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
For a simple fix try Workrave. It's primary use is to prevent RSI, however it also works to prevent stress on the eyes. It has a spiffy popup list of streching exercises and eye exercises to do at your desk.
Workrave
At work people laughed at me becouse I don't like florecent light, so if you can "see" the flicker, then don't have any around (I twisted the ones around me to disconnect them).
At home I have a small halogen desklight that is behind my 21". I turn it on at night and it iluminates my desk and the area around the monitor so your not looking at a bight monitor with darkness behind it.
And if you can use a LCD or a laptop.
hmm... for fun I enjoy launching DDoS attacks against 127.87.42.5
Did you have your eyes "scanned" in the machine? That's how I found out I have astigmatism, and you're usually born with it. It is when the up-down curve of your cornea is different from the left-right one, causing some weird focusing effects. Personally I've always liked low contrast colours and reading in the dark and now I know it is because bright white "bleeds" into dark text due to the focusing flaw. The only downside is my distance perception is rubbish when wearing glasses!
ever
seen was with Noia2 theme on Firefox rendering an extra piece of each button in the Options. As for console windows, you can change the properties to any monospace type you desire, as well as background, foreground, size, and so on. Or is Properties too hard to do? In X-Windows it's even more trivial to set a default. Sheesh!-"Never give entropy an entrance!"
Here's a caution...
I have a dual head setup using a CRT and an LCD, and the combination does _not_ work well together.
My LCD is brighter due to it's backlight, while my CRT is blurrier. Moving my gaze between screens causes a nasty context switch to my eyes.
Position your monitor so that there's a hallway, window, or something behind it other than a cube / office wall. That way you will look up and focus on something in the distance on a regular basis, without any reminder timers.
... the colour scheme for it.slashdot.org!
CRT screens have the refresh from up to down, 60 times per second, 85 times, 100 times etc. The less the refresh rate is the flicker effect is bigger(image trembels). On Lcd screens the refresh rate it is not done by line like on CRT is done by pixel, this reduces the flicker effect GREATLY so your eyes don't get tired that fast. It is not that the background is white, it is the flicker effect that is bigger. This is the main source for eye strain in my opinion. The monitor isn't as bright as the light outside at all. There`s no monitor more bright than the light outside
so how do i change the background of slashdot? Thanks for the tips, they really help.
KARMA POLICE ARREST THIS MAN HE TALKS IN MATHS- radiohead
They found the easiest colors to look at were Grey-White text on a Medium Blue background.
I find that setting things up properly can make a world of difference.
First, some background: Most CRT products are set up out of the box in what could only be described as "torch mode." The color temperature is set so high that the thing appears blueish in almost all lighting, and the contrast at such a setting that most shades of grey are pushed up the gamut until they're all white.
They're configured this way not as an engineering decision to improve visual quality, but as a marketing decision to sell more monitors. The brighter and bluer the monitor is on the shelf at the store, the more likely it is to sell. *sigh*
When in torch mode, other visual abberations become apparant as the power supply is stressed trying to burn your retinas into submission. Heat output increases, and the lifespan of the unit decreases dramatically.
So, crank it all down. When making these adjustments, it is important to be using whatever your typical ambient lighting is, with the unit good and warmed up, since that's what you'll be seeing most of the time...
The contrast control (which would be better labeled as "brightness") should be adjusted so that the monitor appears neither too bright (whatever that is, subjectively), and so that shades of grey are actually grey. The only thing that should appear white is, well, white (#FFFFFF).
The brightness control (which would be better labeled as "black level") should be adjusted so that only the color black (#000000) is black. Dark greys should be visible, but a screen full of black should look like the monitor is switched off. And, again, this needs to be done with the lights adjusted however they normally are.
After that, it's time to make it not appear blue.
Most modern monitors allow you to adjust the color temperature, either by presets or by manipulating RGB values manually. This is, essentially, defining the color of white.
Others may disagree, but I like to set mine up to appear the same as a regular sheet of typing paper under the incandescent lighting that I use in the computer room. On my new(ish) 19" Viewsonic, this was achieved pretty closely by picking its 6500k setting.
Oh, and then, make sure your refresh rate is cranked up high enough that you don't notice flickering, but not so high as to make the images blurry. This is also to say that the -ideal- refresh rate is not always the fastest one.
Do note that by the time you're all done with these steps, you monitor will probably appear much darker than it did before. This is normal, and you'll quickly adjust. Your monitor is now working in its normal operating range, whereas it was previously being catastrophically overdriven. If it's unacceptably dark, it's either time for a new one or a trip to the service shop for adjustment (tubes do wear out, after all) or time to reevaluate your ambient lighting.
Kid-proof tablet..
In addition to using grey backgrounds with black text, I wear a pair of $10 clear-tint Panama Jack sunglasses (block 100% ultraviolet) that I bought in Florida. Not only do they provide instant comfort without darkening anything, but they are humongously stylish, and help start conversations.
hi, I like pancakes -.-- -.-- --..