Three Screens are Better Than One
I rationalized that since I sit in front of a computer all day, I might as well splurge on a decent LCD monitor. But after I looked at the prices for high end, very large monitors, I decided it was better to go the cheaper multiple monitor route.
Last week I took advantage of some sales and picked up not one, but two 22" wide screen LCD monitors. I now have a 3 monitor desktop which stretches the entire length of my desk.
I'm glad that I did. I can honestly say that I wouldn't want to go back to my single LCD screen/KVM/Synergy setup.
Productivity Increases Related to Coding
Various studies have stated that adding additional screen real estate can increase a worker's productivity from 9-50%. Most of the studies fall into the 20-30% range for dual monitors.
Darrell Norton concisely captures what everyone says: 1) people who get multiple monitors don't want to go back; 2) productivity improves.
After multiple monitors were introduced:
- Productivity in lines of code per day increased 10%.
- Defect levels decreased by 26%.
Also as part of my work I created a basic survey to measure some of the qualitative benefits of multiple monitors. The survey used a Likert scale (answer 1 to 5 for each statement, with 1 being disagree strongly, 3 neutral, and 5 agree strongly) to measure respondents on 8 questions. The most important results were:
- On average, people would much rather have 2 smaller monitors than 1 larger monitor. Nobody answered that they preferred 1 monitor over 2 even a little bit.
- Multiple monitors were most useful when the application had palettes or when 2 or 3 windows needed to be open, such as for programming/debugging.
Source: Darrell Norton's Blog. "Seeing Double: An Unbiased View on the Benefits of Multiple Monitors."
Simply stated, for $200 plus a video card and you can have an enormous bump in productivity. It is one of the cheapest productivity enhancements available to small businesses.
References:
1. "Seeing Double: An Unbiased View on the Benefits of Multiple Monitors" Darrell Norton.
2. "Two Screens are Better Than One" Suzan Ross. Microsoft Research.
