Monitoring Real Estate

The productivity gains from investing in large monitor(s) easily outweighs their cost, especially as the price of desktop real estate continues to fall. Though most of the advertising industry has caught on, it occasionally astounds me to learn that there are companies (and even a few agencies) that have not received this wisdom.

The photo above is the desk of my home office (I provide this schematic to clients when I work offsite, if they inquire about my home-studio accommodations).

If you’re one of those unfortunate to have management that views screen size/resolution as some sort of luxury or worse, status symbol (like say, a chair that is comfortable and ergonomic), then below are some links you can use to bolster your case— Multiple studies on the productivity gains of using multiple and/or oversized monitors.

All of the research in the links below was done about two or three years ago, so price-per-inch for large monitors has fallen even more since this work was done.

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PDF - University of Utah (sponsored by NEC):
Productivity and Multi-Screen Displays

PDF - NEC Overview:
Monitor Size and Aspect Ratio Productivity Research

PDF - Georgia Tech (sponsored by Microsoft):
Display Space Usage and Window Management Operation

PDF - Pfeiffer Consulting (sponsored by Apple):
Measuring the impact of screen size on real-world productivity