Comments on: Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/ programming, usability, and interaction design Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:29:58 -0800 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 hourly 1 By: Brian Thomas http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-75205 Brian Thomas Sun, 07 Mar 2010 08:29:58 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-75205 <p>I use a dual monitor setup. I just switched from having one very large monitor to have to medium monitors and I couldn't be happier. I can game in full screen on the left monitor while i have the internet or a movie or whatever going on the right monitor. </p> <p>I didn't realize how often I was alt-tabbing between different applications until I didn't have to do it anymore. At least not as often.</p> <p>I don't always utilize the extra monitor, it spends more time than I would like to admit just sitting there. It is the best possible way to upgrade a PC. If you have $200-$300 to spend on an upgrade a second monitor gives you the biggest bang for your buck.</p> I use a dual monitor setup. I just switched from having one very large monitor to have to medium monitors and I couldn’t be happier. I can game in full screen on the left monitor while i have the internet or a movie or whatever going on the right monitor.

I didn’t realize how often I was alt-tabbing between different applications until I didn’t have to do it anymore. At least not as often.

I don’t always utilize the extra monitor, it spends more time than I would like to admit just sitting there. It is the best possible way to upgrade a PC. If you have $200-$300 to spend on an upgrade a second monitor gives you the biggest bang for your buck.

]]> By: Steve http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-75174 Steve Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:13:53 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-75174 <p>Patrick, I find it interesting that you reviewed actual studies and concluded initially that a second monitor doesn't increase productivity. I was surprised that you didn't run your own test--you seem to belive in the validity of trying things out, e.g. testing, before you reach a conclusion.</p> <p>Nowadays, I write code only very occassionly. But two monitors are very useful. If you do nothing more than leave Outlook open on Monitor 2, you will save significant time. Try it before you jump to your conclusions.</p> <p>Be a fly on the wall and watch a secretary work for a few hours. I guarantee that, if you are paying for his or her time, you will leave your observation post and order a second monitor for them.</p> <p>N.B. Bill is correct. This wide screen stuff is influenced by TV. Vertical hight is key for task oriented stuff. I have a chart that gives me the wide screen size compared to a traditional 3x4 monitor of equal hight.</p> <p>For example, you need a 21 inch wide screen monitor to get approximately the same hight as a 17 inch conventional monitor.</p> <p>For your work, you should use your present wide monitor as your 2nd monitor. Then get a 19 inch 3x4 monitor that has the flexibility to rotate so that the 12.4 inch side is vertical. </p> <p>I think you will be surprised.</p> Patrick, I find it interesting that you reviewed actual studies and concluded initially that a second monitor doesn’t increase productivity. I was surprised that you didn’t run your own test–you seem to belive in the validity of trying things out, e.g. testing, before you reach a conclusion.

Nowadays, I write code only very occassionly. But two monitors are very useful. If you do nothing more than leave Outlook open on Monitor 2, you will save significant time. Try it before you jump to your conclusions.

Be a fly on the wall and watch a secretary work for a few hours. I guarantee that, if you are paying for his or her time, you will leave your observation post and order a second monitor for them.

N.B. Bill is correct. This wide screen stuff is influenced by TV. Vertical hight is key for task oriented stuff. I have a chart that gives me the wide screen size compared to a traditional 3×4 monitor of equal hight.

For example, you need a 21 inch wide screen monitor to get approximately the same hight as a 17 inch conventional monitor.

For your work, you should use your present wide monitor as your 2nd monitor. Then get a 19 inch 3×4 monitor that has the flexibility to rotate so that the 12.4 inch side is vertical.

I think you will be surprised.

]]> By: B.Turner http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-75144 B.Turner Tue, 22 Dec 2009 17:50:32 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-75144 <p>I use my second monitor most for Outlook and my debugger - and as a "user-sized" screen. Our office has several screen layouts - so to make sure I can support the least of these, I setup my second monitor to those dimensions. I have found several cases where the design I was working-on needed to be adjusted (sometimes significantly) for the smaller screen dimensions. Note that some of my users have all kinds of pixel real-estate, but scale it down to accommodate their poorer vision.</p> <p>My larger monitor does allow for more lines of code, which sometimes comes-in handy for the debugger as well (I move it to the bigger wide-screen monitor when necessary).</p> <p>Finally, having my email visible at a glance is very handy, and can help keep in touch when keeping in touch can make a difference in the career.</p> <p>Still - to each his (her) own...</p> I use my second monitor most for Outlook and my debugger – and as a “user-sized” screen. Our office has several screen layouts – so to make sure I can support the least of these, I setup my second monitor to those dimensions. I have found several cases where the design I was working-on needed to be adjusted (sometimes significantly) for the smaller screen dimensions. Note that some of my users have all kinds of pixel real-estate, but scale it down to accommodate their poorer vision.

My larger monitor does allow for more lines of code, which sometimes comes-in handy for the debugger as well (I move it to the bigger wide-screen monitor when necessary).

Finally, having my email visible at a glance is very handy, and can help keep in touch when keeping in touch can make a difference in the career.

Still – to each his (her) own…

]]> By: amir http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-75141 amir Tue, 08 Dec 2009 00:25:19 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-75141 <p>I feel the same way. I just never use it unless I drag a tv show to my 2nd screen.</p> <p>im thinking I'll take it out...</p> I feel the same way. I just never use it unless I drag a tv show to my 2nd screen.

im thinking I’ll take it out…

]]> By: How To Create Your Own Dual Monitor Setup | HKNetLife - Blogging for Life http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-74965 How To Create Your Own Dual Monitor Setup | HKNetLife - Blogging for Life Thu, 03 Sep 2009 14:11:14 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-74965 <p>[...] Multiple Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? An article examining and debating the affects of multiple monitors on productivity [...]</p> [...] Multiple Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? An article examining and debating the affects of multiple monitors on productivity [...]

]]> By: How To Create Your Own Dual Monitor Setup http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-74954 How To Create Your Own Dual Monitor Setup Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:31:48 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-74954 <p>[...] Multiple Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? An article examining and debating the affects of multiple monitors on productivity [...]</p> [...] Multiple Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? An article examining and debating the affects of multiple monitors on productivity [...]

]]> By: George Mauer http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-74785 George Mauer Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:43:02 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-74785 <p>Late to the comment party, but what the hey. </p> <p>Test Driven Development without multiple monitors gets awful crowded since you MUST have a place to display your testing tools. Also anything where you might need to be writing code while looking at a database at the same time. Or if you're coding off of user stories. Or if you're tracking down bugs and entering them into a bug tracker.</p> <p>I do about 10% of my development on a laptop screen and I have to lean on third party desktop management applications a WHOLE lot more to get a decent level of productivity.</p> Late to the comment party, but what the hey.

Test Driven Development without multiple monitors gets awful crowded since you MUST have a place to display your testing tools. Also anything where you might need to be writing code while looking at a database at the same time. Or if you’re coding off of user stories. Or if you’re tracking down bugs and entering them into a bug tracker.

I do about 10% of my development on a laptop screen and I have to lean on third party desktop management applications a WHOLE lot more to get a decent level of productivity.

]]> By: The *real* reason you want a multiple monitor setup — Patrick Dubroy http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-26312 The *real* reason you want a multiple monitor setup — Patrick Dubroy Tue, 03 Mar 2009 22:26:31 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-26312 <p>[...] I had heard about studies that supposedly proved that you can be up to 50% more productive by adding a second display. In my post Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? I looked at these studies, and concluded that in some isolated tasks — like cutting and pasting, or working with a large spreadsheet — you can see a significant benefit if you add a second monitor. But for most programming tasks, the benefits are going to be minimal (but still there). [...]</p> [...] I had heard about studies that supposedly proved that you can be up to 50% more productive by adding a second display. In my post Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? I looked at these studies, and concluded that in some isolated tasks — like cutting and pasting, or working with a large spreadsheet — you can see a significant benefit if you add a second monitor. But for most programming tasks, the benefits are going to be minimal (but still there). [...]

]]> By: Computer Engineer http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-17149 Computer Engineer Tue, 26 Aug 2008 14:27:54 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-17149 <p>I find it funny that people actually believe they are not more productive with multiple monitors. And the author states that he is not more productive with multiple monitors. Then he says that he has a 1440 x 900 resolution on his laptop. Well that is pretty much 1.5 monitors. Atleast width wise it is larger than one monitor. And all of the problems that everyone talks about with managing all of the screen real estate and taing time to figure out what to put on which screen is a load off poop. You guys have obviously not used a multiple monitor set up before. You develope a system and you may have a compile server on monitor 2 and the IDE or build environment on monitor one. You should know without even looking what is on which monitor. It is routine. I even had a multiple desktop program that gave me 8 different desktops on top of the dual monitors. Outlook is on desktop 3 monitor 1, Clear Quest desktop 3 monitor 2, etc...</p> I find it funny that people actually believe they are not more productive with multiple monitors. And the author states that he is not more productive with multiple monitors. Then he says that he has a 1440 x 900 resolution on his laptop. Well that is pretty much 1.5 monitors. Atleast width wise it is larger than one monitor. And all of the problems that everyone talks about with managing all of the screen real estate and taing time to figure out what to put on which screen is a load off poop. You guys have obviously not used a multiple monitor set up before. You develope a system and you may have a compile server on monitor 2 and the IDE or build environment on monitor one. You should know without even looking what is on which monitor. It is routine. I even had a multiple desktop program that gave me 8 different desktops on top of the dual monitors. Outlook is on desktop 3 monitor 1, Clear Quest desktop 3 monitor 2, etc…

]]> By: Benefits of a Large Monitors : Productivity501 http://dubroy.com/blog/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/comment-page-1/#comment-14707 Benefits of a Large Monitors : Productivity501 Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:13:12 +0000 http://dubroy.com/blog/2008/01/25/multiple-monitor-productivity-fact-or-fiction/#comment-14707 <p>[...] Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? - Patrick Dubroy [...]</p> [...] Multiple-Monitor Productivity: Fact or Fiction? – Patrick Dubroy [...]

]]>