Productivity, screens, and aspect ratios

reportQuestions revolving around computer screen display configurations and capabilities have been raised within industry since the introduction of the color computer display in the mid- 1980s. Each innovation has added new questions about the effect of display attributes on productivity. Today's display technology can support a wide array of display configurations from the typical 17-inch (the standard installed base) to the current best-selling 20-inch traditional aspect ratio to the opening field of wide screen (16x9) monitors. In addition, the standard computer's capacity to support more than one monitor has widened the choice to not just which screen but also how many as displays can be easily extended across two, three, four and more screens at a time. There is a small but growing body of research that suggests that of all the possibilities, the typical 17-inch monitor may be the least productive display configuration. Anderson (2003; and Colvin, Tobler, & Anderson, 2004) using 18-inch monitors (1280x1024 pixels) demonstrated that significant productivity gains in the range of 10 percent could be achieved by simply placing another monitor on an office worker's desk (See also Hutchings, et al., 2004) . Simmons and Manahan (1999) looked at the productivity gains across 15-inch to 21-inch display configurations and found significant gains with the 21-inch display. Czerwinski, et al., (2003) in a small sample study showed faster task times for simulated office work for an experimental, very large (48-inch, 4x1), wide-screen display resulting in "to just over a 9 [percent] increase in productivity on the larger display" (p. 5)