Larger Monitors, Better Productivity

And I thought it was common knowledge that the more screen real-estate you have, the more work you can do for the same amount of time. A published article from the Wall Street Journal says it true, but to a certain number of inches.

The magic number seems to be 24.

Researchers at the University of Utah tested how quickly people performed tasks like editing a document and copying numbers between spreadsheets while using different computer configurations: one with an 18-inch monitor, one with a 24-inch monitor and with two 20-inch monitors. Their finding: People using the 24-inch screen completed the tasks 52% faster than people who used the 18-inch monitor; people who used the two 20-inch monitors were 44% faster than those with the 18-inch ones. There is an upper limit, however: Productivity dropped off again when people used a 26-inch screen. (source)

And I thought a 24-inch monitor was an overkill. My money is on dual-monitors though. More horizontal space is better than additional screen height. Ever since I got my second monitor, all I ended up was watching more downloaded vids from bittorent, running Joost or vidcasts from Revision3.

So, size really matters, huh?