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Why Are You Still Using One Monitor?

I have to say one of the best decisions I made in 2007 was to move into a two screen setup for my office. I purchased a 22 inch AOC monitor late in the year for just over AUD$400 and also have my old 17 inch CRT beastie attached as an extra bit of real estate. Running them in dual screen mode allows me to pull screens that I might be referencing into a separate view.

My 22 inch A0C monitor

The increased productivity when I’m coding or researching has been remarkable and I’ve noticed a significant decrease in my error rate. I do tend to maximise my 22 inch (even though people will insist nobody ever does this) simply because I get some odd claustrophobia from having small screens open everywhere. And I’ve tried to turn off one monitor and go solo again but to be honest once you’ve gone this route you’re not going back. How did I ever code in a single screen 17 inch CRT envirnoment in the first place? Utterly insane.

Are you working with two monitors (or more)? I was also amazed to find myself in a large organisation which worked heavily on research and document processing but who would not consider moving workers to that next level of two monitors. And when I say two I mean size does matter. When you consider the expense to the IT budget per person over a year from being under-resourced in comparison to the potential added productivity and reduced error rate per person over that same year from having better IT resources it seems like a no brainer to me. Businesses saving a penny are losing a pound.

I can envision a day in the coming year when I’ll move to a second 22 inch screen too. You can’t really ever have too much screen real estate to get your work done.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 at 8:58 am and is filed under business, usability. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Articles are licenced under a Creative Commons Licence but copyright of images is retained by © Steven Clark 2007 - 2008

2 Responses to “Why Are You Still Using One Monitor?”

  1. Roberto

    January 2nd, 2008 at 3:19 pm

    About six months ago or so, I bought a 22″ wide screen monitor which I intended to hook up with the computer in the living room instead of the 17″ CRT I use as TV. When I got home I thought “I wonder what it’d be like to use it in my main computer, along with the 19″ LCD; just to see if there’s anything to this multi-monitor thing they talk so much about, then I’ll take it to the living room”.

    I’m still watching TV on the 17″ CRT.

  2. steven

    January 2nd, 2008 at 9:37 pm

    there’s just no going back once you’ve tried it Roberto :)

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