User Centered

http://humanized.com/weblog/2006/06/08/one_thing_at_a_time_and_the_mutlitasking_myth/

You're doing it wrong if you need these.

The idea that more screen real estate improves productivity isn't a new idea, but it's certainly true. I don't think you can have too big a screen!

Way back in the 80's I persuaded the department where I worked to buy some A4-portrait monitors - ie. 64 line screens when most people used 25 line screens (this was in pre-GUI days when monitors were measured in lines x chars). They cost an awful lot but they were worth it since you could see a whole page of text at once, and it dramatically reduced the amount of scrolling up and down you had to do when working on a document. It's not something you tend to think about but in fact we tend to spend an awful lot of time simply scrolling back and forth to see things that are offscreen!

I can confirm this finding, from my own experience.. the more the better!

Another interesting question would be, is it better to have one big monitor, or several (usually two) small ones?

What I like with multi screen setups is that I can maximize windows into different screens. The different monitors provide a natural clustering. On the big Mac screen (not my private equipment) I often felt lost, especially with a lot of small windows with all the same Mac metallic look.

Obviously one big screen is better for games and movies.

And the clustering benefits of multi-screen could be simulated on a big one.

My present computer monitor is small.
Reading this article hits home. :-0