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?"

Comments

Joy of Spex

[rueger]

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?

Re:Joy of Spex

[Eric Pierce]

> 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.

And an excellent program I've found to force you to do just that (and take regular breaks) is Workrave

I also went back and forth looking for a "solution" to eye strain. I ended up getting my first pair of glasses. But that doesn't keep me from utilizing my little handful of tips I learned (some of which were learned from a similar Slashdot post 6-8 months back).

Workrave

bought an LCD monitor

Black background on vi

proper eye level w/monitor

parabolic lenses in work environment (just lucky to have that - reduces excess light from across the room)
Good luck,
Eric

zerg

[Lord Omlette]

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)

Dark Colors

[NiTr|c]

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.

MS Word Possible Solution

[Staplerh]

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.

Reducing eyestrain

[blate]

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.

Cleartype?

[TrebleJunkie]

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.

Re:Larger text. Ummm okay

[LWATCDR]

"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.

My Tips

[Tux2000]

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

• Make sure there are no reflections on the monitor (e.g. sun, window, lamps).
• Place the monitor directly on the desk, don't place it on a desktop case or a monitor stand. Make sure you do not have to look up to see the entire screen. Many monitor manuals recommend to adjust the monitor so that you look onto the center of the CRT / TFT, but I prefer to look from above onto the monitor, with my eyes just above the case, in a distance of 1.5 times the monitor diameter.
• Use high quality cables (preferably BNC). Cheap cables can cause massive interferences, visible as vertical or horizontal bars, blurred fonts, and so on. The cable has to transport high frequency signals (100 MHz and more), that just does not work with a cable made from clotheslines and bell wire. Don't use extension cords for the video signal, use a longer cable or even better: Move your equipment. Each additional connector degenerates the signal.
• Use a good graphics adapter. The output filters found on cheap graphics adapter often degenerate the signal at high resolutions and refresh rates until it is unusable. Major brands usually have good filters, cheap clones, onboard junk (with shared memory), and many laptops often have poor filters.
• Avoid console switches (KVM), at least for your main monitor. Most KVMs degenerate the video signal or can't work with the optimum refr

If you're on OS X

[Bastian]

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.

Re:If you're on OS X

[Gulthek]

Go into SysPreferences->Display and click on the Color Tab. Then "Calibrate" and use the expert options. It will take about ten minutes, and if you try to do it all at once your vision will be screwy for a while (you'll see what I mean). But once complete, you won't believe how much clearer your screen is! Save your calibration as something unique and you can click back and forth between the default and your completely calibrated to *your* vision monitor.

When I check out the default color settings now I literally have to squint to see anything. I can't believe it was ever my default setting.

Excellent posts on this subject 7 days ago...

[Michael Spencer Jr.]

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)")

reducing eye strain

[qazwsx789]

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.

Workrave

[eclecticIO]

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

Look up

[Ratbert42]

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.