Do Big Screens Make Employees More Productive?

prostoalex writes "If your company uses 17" or 19" monitors, 30" monitors will make the employees more productive, Apple-sponsored research says. MacWorld reports: "Pfeiffer's testing showed time savings of 13.63 seconds when moving files between folders using the larger screen — 15.7 seconds compared to 29.3 seconds on the 17-in. monitor — for a productivity gain of 46.45 percent. The testing showed a 65.09 percent productivity gain when dragging and dropping between images — a task that took 6.4 seconds on the larger monitor compared to 18.3 seconds using the smaller screen. And cutting and pasting cells from Excel spreadsheets resulted in a 51.31 percent productivity gain — a task that took 20.7 seconds on the larger monitor versus 42.6 seconds on the smaller screen."" Calling such task-specific speed jolts "productivity gains" seems optimistic unless some measure of overall producivity backs up that claim, but don't mention that on the purchase order request.

Answer is

"Do Big Screens Make Employees More Productive?"

yes.

Re:Answer is

It isn't really so concrete, though, is it? I'm perfectly happy with my 19". Would a 30" really help? Maybe... If I had a 30", would a 50"? What about a 100"?

Maybe 30" isn't the magic number, either. Maybe 30" is really TOO big and would cut my productivity because I have to constantly move my whole head to view the screen, instead of just my eyes.

I have a 37" LCD HDTV as a monitor at home. (Mainly for games.) I find I have to sit all the way across the room (Like 8' away) in order to properly view the screen. I'd get the same benefit from a ~ 22" screen that is much closer, and there wouldn't be all that wasted room space.

At work, I'm not even sure a 30" screen would fit on my desk... I seriously doubt it would make me more productive.

Also, it's worth noting that the upgrade from 15" to 19" didn't do much for my productivity at work.

Re:Answer is

Two 19" monitors will give you the same flexibility, at a much lower cost point - AND you can angle each viewing area separately. You can't do that with a single screen.

BTW, twin 19" screens are my setup at both home and the office (the home box is set with xinerama off, the work box with it on).

Re:Answer is

Two moniters is much better than a bigger screen, I currently have four on my work machine, and two at home. My friend projects his home machine through a homecimema setup onto his livingroom wall, it's about 6ft x 4ft , any performance gain is lost on neck pain after trying to find My Computer somewhere near the air vent .

Re:Answer is

It only helps to have 2 monitors rather than 1 large monitor because the window managers handle 2 monitors much better than 1 large monitor. The maximize feature becomes useless if you're using a 30 inch monitor. Maybe we need new window managers to take advantage of the larger screens. I think the fact that they used Macintosh machines definitely changes the results, because the maximize button doesn't really maximize. WHich makes a lot of sense if you have a 23 inch apple cinema display, but doesn't make much sense if you use a 17 4:3 resolution monitor.

Re:Answer is

I think it really depends on the task you doing. For instance:

Dual Monitors:

• Programing/Coding
• some forms of 2D Graphics
• Stock trading
• database development/management
• some forms of word processing
• General Multi Tasking

Basically any scenario where you're doing a lot of side by side comparisons, moving data from one place to another or Channing something on one end and watching the results somewhere else. Multi monitors helps keep you from constantly switching between things.

One Large Monitor

• 3D Graphics
• Gaming
• Media (movies/slide shows etc.)
• Some forms of word processing
• some forms of 2D Graphics
• CAD solidmodeling/drawing

Basically any scenario where you need to do a lot of comparisons of the same object on both a large scale and a small scale, or just getting a large view of something that fills your vision. Any scenario where you're constantly zooming in and zooming out will benefit from a single large monitor by allowing you to leave it mostly zoomed in and using your eyes to move around or change focus to the whole picture instead of your mouse. Games and media benefit from this due to giving you a good immersive feel by filling your vision.

There are other scenarios, and hybrid scenarios: like the gamer who keeps an IM client and stock ticker open or the person who likes to play a movie in the background while they do other work. But the type of display that works "best" changes depending on what you're using it for. Perhaps the best universal scenario would be a 30" main display with a 19" secondary.

I would definitely agree that there's a point of being too big, but I don't think you could associate an actual size with it. 30" might be too big if you're only sitting 20" from it Similarly I've got a projector in my basement that's got a 114" image but I can comfortably use that from my couch 180" away. So size is relative to how far away you're set from the screen.

Re:Answer is

I think it all depends on what you do with it.

When doing graphics, you'd probably work better on the largest single monitor you can find.

When programming, two monitors will probably be quite convenient.

Playing a movie on two separate screens wouldn't even compare to a single big screen.

A game will just look enlarged on a larger display, whereas you'd probably get a wider view, and thus more information, on two separate monitors.

And, according to Apple's research, a big screen is pretty good for basic OS/offics tasks.

I'm sure there's more examples that go either way.

Re:Answer is

Maybe 30" is really TOO big

Please turn in both your "Geek" and "Man"(if you actually have them) Credentials at the door!

Suprisingly enough...

30" screens will also make Apple a lot more money. Funny how that works out.

Re:Suprisingly enough...

In other news, a study sponsored by Phillip-Morris says smoking makes you look cooler, thus attracting the opposite sex.

why not dual or triple displays?

I certainly feel more productive on dual screens vs. a single display.

LCDs are also more productive than CRTs, because they free up more desk space for heaping junk, err... I meant, organizing my work.

That depends...

...on the work your doing, and if it can be partitioned into multiple spaces efficiently. CAD work, it turned out for me, wasn't any more efficient on two screens, but was more efficient on a large widescreen. Since the tools take up a small portion of the screen, a second monitor was mostly unused (unless you count a calendar and email program constantly viewable as useful). A single, large monitor means more drawing data available / more detail shown on the screen, and reduces zooming and panning for operations. If I could drive a 30" from my laptop, I might buy one. I use a 24" WS 'cause it matches my current laptop resolution (seamless transition from work to road use), and it wasn't insanely expensive (30"ers were over $2.5k when I got the 24).

Moving files?

The time I need to type mv file /some/new/destination/ may depend on the size of the keyboard, but surely not on the size of the screen.

Re:Moving files?

Yes, but if you can touch type, you can move your files and read s;asjdpt at tje sa,e to,e...

I don't really care...

...what you all think regarding whether it's truly a jump in productivity or not.

*copies link, sends to boss.*

Idiotic example

Sure, I'll agree that big screens can make one more productive. In fact I'd rather have two big monitors than one attached to my machine. More real estate is a good thing.

But the given example, of dragging and dropping files, has got to be the stupidest thing I've read today, and I'm already at work.

Refer to Amdahl's Law

Apple should refer to Amdahl's Law [wikipedia.org] to see that a 50% speedup of something that only accounts for 1% of your overall time really ain't that big of a deal!

Re:Refer to Amdahl's Law

50% and 1%? So you're saying there's a 51% speedup! Excellent! I'll forward your request right down to purchasing and you'll have two monitors on your desk on Monday. I hope to see 102% improvement!

Signed,

Rich
(your manager)

Depending on what you're doing, yes...

One of my clients, involved in cartography (making maps), showed me his brand new 30" screen and said he had upgraded from 20" because on one single project, he was losing about 25% of his time scrolling around. So I'd have to say it not only made him more productive, but it also eventually paid for itself.

Quite a bit more...

I ran one monitor at work for a long time (17" - the head IT guy keeps rejecting my request for a 19"). They won't let me put a second video card in my computer, so I threw up a linux box and use X2VNC between them and now I have twice the usable space and I am much more productive, especially when coding or doing trouble tickets. I spend way less time alt-tabbing around looking for my terminal sessions - they're all on one monitor, as well as my browser, etc, leaving my 'work' tools on the other so I can move between easily.

The downsides I see are a) cost and b) people getting a 30" monitor, complaining they can't see anything, and running 800x600. I think that would break my heart and mind a little, but it wouldn't suprise me. People around here still run 800x600 on their 17" monitors, and complain that 1280x1024 is too small.

But, now that I think about it, having a 30" monitor wouldn't necessarily help - when you maximize a window, it fills the whole screen, which still puts you back to alt-tabbing. Maybe a better window manager/gui that you could break the screen in to regions, so that when you maximize a window, it would only fill the top 40% or something. Or the ability to pin windows to a location, os you don't have to maximize them.

I think my point is that more screen real-estate, be it one huge monitor, or 2 (or 3 as I sometimes setup) is very much more useful.

God, I babble a lot.

A 30'' monitor at work

would make sneakily watching porn a lot more worthwhile.

29.3 Seconds?

Anybody that takes 29.3 to do a file-copy operation needs treatment for their Parkinson's disease, NOT a bigger monitor.

Yes, but so does training

How many times have you seen a computer user who is constantly picking and clicking with their mouse to do the simplest of tasks? I've seen veteran users select text from where the cursor is to the end of the line with the mouse, then click Edit then Cut, then click the point in the document where they want to paste the text, then click Edit then Paste. Shift-End, Ctrl-X, Click at insertion, Ctrl-V would have saved even the fastest mouse-jockey 15-20 seconds on a very common action. There are hundreds of shortcuts - just learning a dozen will save several minutes in a typical day.

Different tasks require different screen real estate, and sometimes bigger is better. But for office app productivity, the low hanging fruit is training.

SHUT UP!

SHUT UP! Everybody just SHUT UP! This is NOT the time to examine or question these results! This is the time to show your boss this scientific, scholarly article and get him to decide to give you a great honking big expensive Apple screen!

Now Sshhh! Sshhh! Quiet.

Print. Walk to office, walk through door, show boss article, exit through door, walk back to desk, sit down, go back to reading slashdot.

More real estate is the key

The article has things oversimplified. It's not a larger monitor that makes you more productive. It's more real estate that makes you more productive. With that 30 inch monitor came a higher resolution. A 30 inch monitor at 800x600 is not much more productive than a 15 incher.

A larger monitor is easier on the eyes, and if it's easier on the eyes, you can make the resolution higher, thus gaining more real estate and being able to put more windows on your screen.

Dual monitors always increase real estate so it's easy to see how they increase productivity. Getting a larger monitor doesn't always increase productivity unless it includes an increase in resolution.

Once again this proves that it's not the size that matters, it's how you use it.