Why aren't computer monitors more commonly square, specifically in the workplace?
Why aren't computer monitors more commonly square, specifically in the workplace?
Almost all business applications have horizontal menus and ribbons that take up a decent percentage of a landscape monitor instead of utilising the "spare" screen space on the left or right, and a taskbar usually sits at the bottom or top of the screen eating up even more space (yes I know this can be changed but it's not the default).
Documents are traditionally printed/read in portrait which is reflected on digital documents.
Programmers often rotate their screens to be portrait in order to see more of the code.
Most web pages rarely seem to make use of horizontal real estate, and scrolling is almost universally vertical. Even phones are utilised in portrait for the vast majority of time, and many web pages are designed for mobile first.
Beyond media consumption and production, it feels like the most commonly used workplace productivity apps are less useful in landscape mode. So why aren't more office-based computer screens giant squares instead of horizontal rectangles?
Modern squarish (16:18) monitors do exist, a friend has one and swears by it. For example, this one isn't even that expensive given the size, resolution and that it's bundled with what looks like an excellent monitor arm.
Personally I'm more in the "two windows side by side on a big ass 16:9" camp.
It sounds like people in your workspace haven’t discovered opening multiple windows side by side.
I’ve found people in the windows world often make everything full screen all the time- such a waste. You have a 40” 6k display and you open a single giant word doc.
You could have 3 or more documents open side by side- or a webpage for reference, a notepad, and your work or 1000 other combinations.
I do development work so my workflow is extremely text heavy, but it’s rare that I don’t have 4+ windows open simultaneously per display. I also use an old dell monitor I had laying around rotated 90 degrees as others mentioned for log monitoring or chat threads.
I think people just need to get more creative using their space- it’s not the monitor’s fault if you don’t fill it with stuff.
I get so triggered by people just using the external screen as a mirror. With wrong aspect ratio and resolution. With maximized windows.
There's a reason I need tiling shortcuts and an ultrawide screen.
Can't imagine there are too many traditional offices with 40" 6k screens.
As I say, I think it's unfair to blame users for "not using the screen properly" when most office software is set up for portrait, while the screens are horizontal. Yes you can use multiple windows (assuming your widescreen display is big enough to allow productive working with two smaller windows), or multiple screens, or rotate them etc, but they feel like workarounds to get around the fact that the applications work naturally in portrait, and most laptop screens for example don't easily accommodate any of those options. Which is probably why you see more 3:2 laptop displays than standalone monitors.
You took me a little bit too literally- I was illustrating a point. People have comparably giant displays compared to the 90’s and yet still treat them as single small displays.
It’s easier on your neck to look side to side than it is up and down. So to get more screen real estate it makes more sense to go horizontal. Anecdotally, I constantly have two documents or a document and a web page open next to each other on one monitor. The landscape framing works really well for that.
I imagine it has to do with binocular vision. If each eye sees roughly a circle, overlapping roughly makes a landscape rectangle. So perhaps that aspect ratio and orientation just "feels" better?
3:2 and 4:3 used to be fairly common but I think economies of scale made everything 16:9 because of TVs
Fortunately 16:10 is becoming more popular again which does give a bit more vertical space
Yeah. Strange that in general the applications themselves haven't transitioned with the hardware. Every office desktop seems to have a widescreen, but every office application still has its menus along the top by default, and does little to take advantage of the increased horizontal space.
LibreOffice has a way to switch to a sidebar UI. I always preferred that, because of what you describe...
Forgot to say, I reckon your economies of scale answer is the reason why. TVs were, so makes sense for monitors to be.
The market is to optimize for max human eyesight, which is a horizontal aspect ratio. For edge cases, a monitor can be converted to a vertical aspect ratio easily.
There really isn't a large market to go square. If anything, monitors have gotten wider over time.
Not to mention I only want to go wider.
The immersion for gaming is all I car for, my work laptop is for work and it's something I hardly use as a mechanic
the most commonly used workplace productivity apps are less useful in landscape mode.
They aren't less useful, they just don't take advantage of the extra space on their own. A wide monitor allows you to put multiple windows side-by-side without the expense of an additional monitor though.
With that in mind; a wide monitor is useful for document editing, web browsing, media viewing/production, gaming, and can even be rotated (stand/mount permitting) for a tall view if desired.
A square monitor is much more limited.
Not if the square monitor is the same width as the widescreen though.
A square monitor the same width as a widescreen is 77% larger overall = more expensive. (both in terms of materials and horsepower to run it)
There's not enough benefit to justify the cost of stretching both dimensions; we use the width more than the height.
You turn your secondary monitor 90 degrees and rotate the screen in display settings. This is how I worked on long list items.
We did that for decades. It was pretty miserable.
I reckon that was more to do with the actual screen size though. Screens are a fuckload bigger and cheaper these days.
I mean, I think not, having lived on them, and not wanting to go back.
Its about information density. The "things" we interact with, they almost never fit into an equal dimensional density across two dimensions. There is almost always more substantially more information in one dimension than the other.
A spread sheet you are interacting with is almost always either longer in one way, or wider in another. Even if it wasn't, creating a manner in which it could be optimally viewed would make the content irrelevantly small.
We're better off picking one of the two dimensions, committing to an orientation, and then rotating our monitor to fit that. If we do that, we'll get more information per unit area on the screen.
I am a big fan of 21:9 aspect ratio because it is wide when you want it but can be square(ish) when you don't by snapping two windows sode by side.
Bang on, just a pity so many game devs are still pretty lazy with the support (I get it, it’s still a pretty niche aspect)
Humans (and most other animals) see better side-to-side than up-down. Your eyes are spaced horizontally, giving us a wider horizontal field of vision. People generally prefer putting things side-to-side in work environments, maybe also reflecting how much easier it is to move and work within a horizontal plane than a vertical one. So the upper threshold for monitor width would be longer than the upper threshold for monitor height.
That being said, I know reading is best done in narrower columns, to reduce the amount of left-right movement your eyes need to do which can cause you to lose your place when skimming lines. Three columns of text on a 16:9 monitor is way more readable than one column of text that spans the entire monitor.
And then why do we make an exception for phones which are predominantly used in portrait mode? I guess maybe just for easier 1-handed use? Maybe also to give us more peripheral vision of potential hazards and other things happening in the background when using them, since they're mobile devices.
I suspect the answer is because computer monitors evolved from televisions and video monitors, which standardised on 4:3 and, later, 16:9 for media viewing.
There was a brief period during the switch to LED when 3:2 and then 16:10 looked like they could take over, but 16:9 made a comeback and monitors have remained mostly in lockstep with modern TVs ever since.
I kinda liked 16:10, briefly had a work monitor with it.
We see on a wide horizontal plane, so maybe there is a connection to that?
A 16:9 screen is basically two squares side by side, so instead of making a big square they can just make the landscape monitor bigger until it's large enough that you can comfortable view two documents side-by-side. I definitely prefer 16:10 or 3:2, though.
Nothing would look good on a square monitor.
If you want a tall monitor, turn it sideways.
What do you mean by look good though? My question is based on productivity, and why software seems geared towards having top-down functionality on screens that generally provide more width.
I personally think portrait monitors, like a standard modern smartphone, would resolve most of these problems.
Also for programming, most IDEs make good use of the horizontal space and expect a roughly 16:9 screen where the IDE takes up most of the space on that screen. Not that you can't just minimise the side panels but still, it's a helpful feature of the software.
As for why portrait isn't the default, I dunno, but if you start using a portrait monitor at work you'll probably get some coworkers following suit if it's such an improvement.
I tried for a while to use two 16:9 vertically. Like you say, vertical makes a lot of sense and it works great. But web devs seem universally to assume that if it’s a tall narrow screen, to show the mobile version.
Remember when PSUs used to have a power port in it that you plugged your monitor in to?
That was a great idea and wish it still existed but I guess they needed all the space for all the millions of peripherals that got added.
I like them like that but I often like to do side by side.
