Does the boss laugh at you when you propose buying one of those nifty and expensive giant flat screen monitors? Your jesting may have more weight than you thought. A recent study commissioned by Apple Computers says a bigger monitor equals bigger output.
Think of it as a large desk on which to organize stacks of papers, says Pfeiffer Consulting, who conducted the project for Apple to measure the productivity gains associated with the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display. The larger surface area of a big workstation aids in organizing more information at once.
Pfeiffer’s report revealed that high-resolution displays on the 30-inch monitors increased productivity no only in professional design and publishing, digital imaging, and digital video, but also in general productivity and office applications like word processors and spreadsheets.
When combining information from a spreadsheet with a word-processing document on the 17-inch display, workers took twice as long than they did with the 30-inch display. When combining and positioning image elements in Photoshop, it took three times longer. Further, a 20-inch display yielded faster results than a 17-inch, but slower results than the 30-inch.
The phenomenon is due to, explains Pfeiffer, the larger surface area on which people have to complete their tasks. A smaller screen requires zooming and panning a picture, while a larger display can show both pictures side-by-side at 100 percent. Similarly, with a spreadsheet on screen, an employee can also have an easy-to-see webpage and email client open and visible at the same time.
The research team looked at productivity as executed with Adobe InDesign CS2, Illustrator CS2, Microsoft Office 2004, and QuarkXPress 6.5.
Pfeiffer says that computer displays are often a widely overlooked factor in measuring productivity, but also that in addition to increased employee output, a larger screen has a significant impact on ROI. That ROI can translate to thousands of dollars a year.
In addition to screen size, LCD monitors are thought to have an advantage of TV-style CRT monitors for a number of reasons. CRT monitors are more fatiguing to read from, show color degradation over time, and use more electricity.
The case for the LCD screen then is that they have to be replaced less often, decrease user fatigue, and are more energy efficient. Pfeiffer feels these factors justify the higher cost.
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