Partitioning digital worlds: focal and peripheral awareness in multiple monitor use

Software today does not help us partition our digital worlds effectively. We do it ourselves. This field study of users of multiple monitors examines how people with a lot of display space organize and arrange information. Their second monitors are not generally used as extra workspace, they are used for secondary activities related to principal tasks, for peripheral awareness of information that is not the main focus, and for easy access to resources. The second monitor improves efficiency in ways that may be difficult to measure yet can have substantial subjective effect. The study provides specific illustrations of shortcomings of today’s systems and applications: The way we work online could be improved substantially at relatively low cost