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I'm looking at getting a new LCD monitor, but I'm concerned that a glossy monitor might cause more eye strain after a long day of work. I typically spend a lot of time in front of my monitor, so eye strain is definitely something I have thought about. Do you prefer the matte or glossy LCD screens and why?
Matte, because you get fewer reflections on it, which is good if your workplace is bright. I've worked with both, but especially if you have bright objects around your monitor, or windows at the side, you'll really want to have a matte one.
Constantly having reflections in it is really annoying, and hurts the readability in the long run.
I have a glossy screen on my laptop and I have an LCD standalone monitor that I hook up. I like them both for different reasons.
Reasons I like my glossy monitor:
Graphics look great
Colors look vivid
Presentations look awesome
Graphics are really easy on the eye and just seem to flow like on TV
Great for games which all look phenominal
It's widescreen, great for movies
I can see all my code without having to scroll right [because of the widescreen]
Reasons I like my Standalone Matte Monitor:
My code is easier to read [Consequently this is what I use for programming]
Graphics I design on my glossy screen don't always look great on my matte monitor, but graphics I design on my matte screen always look fantastic on both.
It's bigger (may not be relevant to you)
It has a higher contrast ratio and better backlight
If you're somewhere bright or have a light source behind you, i.e. you're sitting with your back to the sun, the glare can be intollerable on both screens... whichever has the highest "Bright" setting will win out here.
What I find a lot of people say about "You should use matte because..." or "You should use glossy because..." are just repeating what the guy in FutureShop or CompUSA spewed out trying to sell them what they ultimately bought.
I have one of each, I love having one of each and love them both for different reasons. Pick the one that's best at whatever you're going to be using it for.
My suggestion is this: Find somewhere you can try them both out side by side for what you're going to be using it for, or if you can, try each of them out for a few days to decide.
I prefer glossy, as long as the light isn't shining on it. Check where your computer is, and where your lights are and where your windows/skylights are. Otherwise, I would always use matte.
I think this is pretty much a personal choice. I used to think that glossy is unbearable until I got a laptop with a glossy screen and was forced to work with it for some time. Now I don't even care too much and don't feel that it's much worse. If I had a choice, I'd still choose a matte one, however.
I went through the same dilemma when I bought my current laptop. I'm an old timer and I didn't want the glossy screen. I almost bought a different one because I wanted the matte screen. I would go into Circuit City and Best Buy and I would hate the glare. I then used one at a friends house for a few hours in more real world conditions and I liked it. I bought a glossy one but I was still torn about my decision.
Now I'm glad I got the glossy and I wouldn't buy a laptop without one. Not only does most things look better on it, but it has a great viewing angle. I tend to use my laptop a lot when demoing stuff or working with a user. You can't beat the viewing angle of the glossy displays.
After two years of using it I rarely run into situations where I run into glare from bright lights. The few times I do, just a slight repositioning is all that is required to fix it.
When I replace my current monitors they will be glossy. The issues with a laptop, because it's mobile, just don't really exist with a desktop monitor. Neither of my two desktop environments present a glare issue. I currently have one glossy and one matte at work and I don't really see a difference between one and the other as far as eye strain. For me it's all viewing angle and how great stuff looks on the glossy one.
I think glossy gets too much stick. The reflections can be a nuisance in the wrong environment, but matte screens don't give the pure, unmolested picture that some people seem to think - incoming light gets diffused over the screen's surface by the anti-reflective coating hence the sharpness and contrast that the underlying panel is able to offer are degraded somewhat.
Related
Visually speaking, the "displayed image" (in the steam/vive window) looks very similar to any other game being rendered on the desktop. Eg: Counterstrike, WoW, etc.
Question: Why is it then these games don't "feel" like being in a VR environment?
Also, programmatically speaking (image rendering, camera angles, depth field, etc)
Question: Can a non-VR game work with the VR sets as long as you configure the controls to the headset and wands? Eg: Headset = joystick; wand buttons = menu etc.
Thank you.
Edit: Please let me know if you have any reading recommendations on this subject.
The non-VR games simply weren't made for VR.
That said, there are hacks that make non-VR games semi-work in VR. You can check out Vorpx for Oculus, but I don't know of anything for Vive. There will be very big issues and headaches, though.
A lot of things will look bad - like missing graphics as almost all games go through shortcuts so they don't render what you will not see. For example there is no sky in RTS games and the map ends just after the end of scrollable space. Or when you're driving a car in a race game, there probably isn't even more to the car then the dashboard (no seats, back of the car etc). No one should see them, so no one made them.
It's even worse with the user interface of these games, no one had depth in mind when they designed this, so you'll have an ammo counter that makes you cross eyes end such.
I could go on and on with the issues, as this is just the tip of the iceberg.
I asked a similar question here a while ago about boosting the speed at which MKOverlays are added to an MKMapView by using threading during their creation, but I soon realized that the part of the process that was really dragging me down was not the creation of the overlays, but their addition to the map. Creating many overlays (even 3000+) takes an acceptable amount of time, but adding them all to the map takes far too long (15 seconds).
I know 'what are your favorite' questions usually aren't considered 'right' for Stack Overflow, but I think this question is okay because although it is subjective in a way, there is still a 'right' answer- the one that provides significant changes in the performance of an MKMapView with lots of MKOverlayViews.
Basically, I'd love to know if anyone has any tips or tricks (any at all) for tuning the speed of the addition of many different MKOverlays to a map view. Right now my alternative is combining them all into one big line, which is much faster, but then I lose the ability to treat each segment as an individual line (i.e. being able to show a callout for each segment), which is one of the cooler features in the app, so I'd really like to find a way to make this work. Right now, all of the lines load, given enough time, but even after, scrolling is a nightmare.
I'd really like to hear your thoughts! Thanks!
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Does anyone program with white text against black background? I have heard some rumors that it is better for your eyes. What's the case? Is it any better than the traditional black on white? What are the pros and cons?
It's actually white on black, or rather green or amber on black, that is the traditional way. I've used them all. :)
I believe that the use of black on white started in word processors, because it's a lot easier on your eyes when you alternate between looking at the screen and looking at source material printed on paper.
Also, the contrast between the screen background and the surrounding lighting should be small, so a white background works best with the well lit room most people use computers in most of the time. If you are programming in the darkness a black background would give less contrast, but then it's more a question of why you don't have proper lighting in your room...
There are of course personal preferences than can affect your choise of color setting, and your eyesight (or lack thereof) might also make one setting better than the other.
There is an endless debate on slashdot one can go through for all the unintelligible technical details (the more technical analyses seems to favour dark on light side though).
This article, though about web designing, warns about the hazards of mindless black theming. The important aspect I understand is that the font is more important than coloring schemes. There is also disadvantage for black (not dark in general, but just pure black) background with white font if font is thin, since black creeps on to white and font would look a lil' blurry.
Despite all that, personally I find reading on darker background much easier for eyes. I don't think there is a definite answer for "light font on darker background" or vice versa. It will have to depend on personal tastes and habits more importantly. For sure, the right scheme lets the font (the writing) to project to fore and subdues the background. Now ask yourself is it dark on light that does this or light on dark? Here is the key, in that advocates who vouch for similarity with print suggesting that black outshines the white on paper, is blind to the fact that it is not the situation when it comes to electronic screen. Here the intensity of white beams on your eyes is much higher when compared to black.
And there is nothing like a best background color or fore color, but its the combination that matters. Right combination gives the right contrast, and contrast matters. And contrast should be sufficiently high, but not enough to be straining. Pure white on deep black can be hurting (the contrast being significantly high) but at the same time white on dark green is soothing. The same goes with amber on black.
Also when having a dark background it should be pale and not intense, so something like dark grey or teal will be better than black which in turn will be better than blue, red etc. Black on grey is excellent.
The solarized theme actually is after some good round of testing, going after their website. The good thing I love about Notepad++ is that some of the better known themes like solarized, zenburn, vibrant ink are available built in with the style configurator. Obsidian is the best without a doubt btw! :) Catch it for Visual Studio here.
It seems to be a preference thing and possible environmental thing, honestly. You'll find people who believe each method is superior.
I know that personally, I have coded since the green-on-black and amber-on-black terminals were around, and now I use light gray text on black backgrounds wherever possible. I find black backgrounds to be extremely comfortable on my eyes even for very long sessions, but white backgrounds are very fatiguing. I have heard it described as "staring into a 100 watt lightbulb" and that's how it feels to me.
Room lighting can potentially have a significant effect also. Brighter rooms may lend themselves to brighter backgrounds, and darker rooms to dark backgrounds. It reduces the need for your eyes to struggle to switch between wide and narrow pupils required for bright then dark then bright as you occasionally look away from the monitor to relax your eyes (you should always do this, right?).
The best advice is to just try both, give it a week or so, and decide which you like better. If you find both the extremes are glaring, try using a more subdued theme than pure whites and pure blacks, try some softer grays.
The quick answer is "dark text on white background suits more people".
My answer refers to this one: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/15142/which-is-easier-on-the-eyes-dark-on-light-or-light-on-dark
As a person with astigmatism, I find white background with dark text is easier to read as the reference suggested. (I specifically experienced this after using the dark theme in visual studio 2013. It is so fuzzy to me that I had to change back to its 2012 default theme.)
Below are the quotes:
The science of readability is by no means new, and some of the best research comes from advertising works in the early 80s. This information is still relevant today.
First up is this quote from a paper titled “Improving the legibility of visual display units through contrast reversal”. In present time we think of contrast reversal meaning black-on-white, but remember this paper is from 1980 when VDUs (monitors) where green-on-black. This paper formed part of the research that drove the push for this to change to the screen formats we use today.
However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background.
Reference: Bauer, D., & Cavonius, C., R. (1980). Improving the
legibility of visual display units through contrast reversal. In E.
Grandjean, E. Vigliani (Eds.), Ergonomic Aspects of Visual Display
Terminals (pp. 137-142). London: Taylor & Francis Ok, 26% improvement
– but why?
People with astigmatism (aproximately 50% of the population) find it
harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of
this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white
background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the
"deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens
to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much
fuzzier focus at the eye.
Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory
Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British
Columbia The "fuzzing” effect that Jason refers to is known as
halation.
It might feel strange pushing your primary design goals based on the vision impaired, but when 50% of the population of have this “impairment” it’s actually closer to being the norm than an impairment.
The web is rife with research on the topic, but I think these two quotes provide a succinct justification for why light text on a dark background is a bad idea.
I'm sure that plus of programming and using white on black layouts causes less energy using.
Example of site saving energy by black layout is http://blackle.com/
well if you are programming when it is already dark outside then yes that rumor might be true becuase it is better for your eyes if the contrast between your monitor and room is smaller.
Below mixed with my own thoughts and others.
Pure Black:
Pure white text on pure black is awful for reading (it's looks awesome on some graphs). Contrast is too high, and pure black may looks unnatural. So Visual Studio is using dark grey, just like Photoshop.
Visual Studio Team Says:
According to The Visual Studio Blog, dark editor themes are overall more preferred, reduced strain over long time usage is the top reason.
Emotional Expectation:
Emotionally, at least for some I guess: things related to creation with a dark theme may feels better, like those software; things books alike, e.g. blog or something, light background may better, since it's more expected.
Black for Colors:
For eyes, generally, I'm fine for both light and dark theme, since I'll always make sure the backlit not too light. As for Visual Studio, I guess the strain for eyes comes from the scanning of colors. You know, it's already hard to recognize all those colors (okay not that hard, you got the point), then there's that big fat white on the way, all the way. Guess eyes just have a "color sensitive mode", like people may not enjoy two white bars even if it's a light colored cartoon.
Light background easily makes things look clean, leads to higher readability for articles; dark background helps emphasize the color, leads to higher readability for codes.
One difference between blog and code text is that, codes are generally colored in a way it can standout its construction. Read an article will focused more on its meaning behind the words, but reading codes focus more on its visual construction and color, focus more on words itself. In photo editing and movie playing, dark colors provides less distraction. We treat codes actually more like a photo or video where visual matters more or even lots. Dark background fades away and makes the visual construction stand out.
I use black background, because it wont strain my eyes. I used to regularly use white background, After 2 years, my eyes started getting strain. i tried to reduce the screen brightness, but it didn't help.
Finally i switched to black and now my eyes hardly even get stressed or watery (but still i'm going to wear spects soon)...
I know this is an old question, but I figured I'd give a little bit of my input. Maybe it'll help someone.
Purely white background was starting to hurt my eyes from several hours of nonstop programming. My vision was getting blurry to the point where I would have to stop. I attempted to use darker themes, but it was harder to focus on text and that made it more difficult for me to scan through the code to find a particular bit. Search functionality would not always work, because I might not know what I'm looking for (solving an exception-less bug, etc).
I looked around and found out that some gamers and programmers use yellow-tinted glasses. Popular choice appears to be Gunnars. However, I didn't feel like spending $70 on a pair of glasses, because historically, my comfort zone with glasses is very narrow and I didn't feel like wasting my time or money.
So, further searching around brought me to f.lux. It's absolutely free. The default settings were a bit too extreme for me and I couldn't get used to them even after two weeks. However, after adjusting them slightly, I've been enjoying it very much. During the day time, the screen is at its normal tone and intensity, but as the evening closes, it transitions into dimmer settings. When I tried to test the difference (after getting used to it) by disabling it, it made it painful to look at the normal screen. So, it does work. If you decide to give it a try... just try to use it for a few weeks before dismissing it. It took me a while to get used to it.
Anyways, if you just can't stand darker themes, like me, those two options are probably a good way to remedy that issue.
I have heard that black text on white background will not hurt your eyes, but using a black background for a long time, can make visual problems of your eyes.
B.K. brings up a lot of points that I too experience. First of which I know this is an older post, but it's still a relevant question. Secondly where I differ is I use a hybrid of darker and traditional lighter themes.
Personally I find darker background to be visually better. When I code I use this type of theme in my IDE Dark Theme for Visual Studio 2010 With Productivity Power Tools. The one thing that I do differently is I do not use the very dark code area or alter the coloring of the text. I go in and change my Options > Environment > Fonts and Colors > Plain Text > Item Background > Custom > Silver. This in turn gives me the aesthetically pleasing darker menus and such in the IDE but still makes my eyes focus on the code. It also keeps all the text and color coding that is native to the default IDE. This of course is for Visual Studio 2010. Newer versions or different IDEs have their own themes.
I have very light sensitive eyes and I tend to get headaches when coding all day without breaks. So I prefer toning the menus, tool bars, and side bars of an IDE to be darker. I also do use the Gunnar glasses.
There's quite a bit of evidence supporting that white background with darker text is actually better for your eyes in well lit office situations and such. https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-theme-is-better-for-the-eyes Has some very good sources listed throughout the responses on these studies. This is mainly concerning design for end users, but at the end of the day even though we are developers we are still end users of the IDE products and the same rules still apply.
So in conclusion it has a lot to do with your environment, your eyesight, and what you prefer. I personally use a dark IDE with a gray or silver work space with traditionally dark text. This makes it still easy to spot the contrast, but doesn't hurt my eyes by overwhelming me with white.
On my laptop dark background create too much light reflection.
It is really cool for your eyes.
White means full colour -- rgb(255, 255, 255) -- and black means no colour -- rgb(0, 0, 0). So when you are reading some black text against white background, the screen is flashing a lot of light except for a small portion (the text). On the other hand, when you are reading a white text against black background, the screen emits (almost) nothing except for the text area. That's why it looks so cool.
However, the contrast and environment lighting matter. Although I prefer white on black, both pure white on pure black and pure black on pure white have a high contrast, making things unreadable. In my personal experience, 'dark white' text on 'light black' would be the most suitable and long-readable theme for any environment.
I used to program with
White background, I felt more tired and kind of flickering when going home and more tired.
Then I switched to Black background
Eye feels more relaxed and much less tiring and stressed.
I am not sure, which is good for eyes though.
Technically.
When the background is Black the iris open more. I think it allows more radiation in. Not sure.
I'm using white background, because as a web developer you moving from browser to editor all the time and most websites are in white.
I tried to use black background and my eyes started to hurt, because of the switching between both editor and browser. (editor - black, browser - white)
I guess if you work just in black background for all your apps this might work
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In the very near future my development setup will be upgraded and part of the deal will be dual monitors (yay!)
At least one of the monitors, possibly both, will be widescreen.
I've heard of developers using a second monitor, especially a widescreen monitor, in portrait mode. It allows for many more lines on the screen (albeit narrower) and runs a bit like having a long page of code.
Does anyone out there use this and think it's more effective?
I actually have 3 widescreen monitors in portrait mode and yes, it's a fantastic way to work. There's so much less scrolling around and you can fit all your debug / output / reference windows on screen at once.
The problem with using two monitors is that you'll generally be working on one main one and have output (or whatever on another). If you do have two, set it up so that your primary monitor is directly in front of you and the other (less frequently used) one is off to one side. I find that to be the best way to use a dual-monitor set up as it reduces RSI from being permanently twisted to look at a particular screen.
Additionally, there are some programs available to provide virtual screen splits which I've fund very useful for large/widescreen monitor setups.
[edit] ..and yes, you should write functions short enough to fit on a single page, but being able to see more functions at any one time can often make development easier in my experience :-)
[edit2] Running Visual-Studio-esque IDEs in portrait on a widescreen monitor is fantastic when it comes to debugging compile errors as you have more useable space to see code and errors at the same time. I suppose you could argue that if you compile regularly enough though, you shouldn't see that many errors at one time? ...but who codes like that? ;-)
Since you shouldn't write functions that are longer than a screen, making the screen much longer is a little bit of cheating, isn't it? ;)
Anyway, I found portrait mode not really better when coding, and only with my old 17" widescreen in portrait mode was viewing / editing documents better. With two large screens in landscape mode, You can put two pages on a screen when viewing documents, and have many tool windows open at both sides of the IDE's text editor. So no, portrait mode is not better, unless you have four of them to make up a really large screen (there was a photo of such a setup on a Microsoft blog, but I don't remember where).
There are some applications where portrait is still better, though, e.g. if you have to show a document in large resolution, or if you have some monitor (as in network monitor) running and want to see more lines at once.
I can't imagine how that would speed up productivity. In my opinion, it is always easier to scroll up/down than left/right.
It depends on which IDE you use, if any.
Microsoft Visual Studio likes to take up a lot of the width of the monitor with its “Toolbox” and “Solution Explorer”, so I find it works better on a landscape monitor. As it will not let you undock an editor window, you could not even drag a code editor to a second monitor that was in portrait mode.
Also consider how your customers are most likely to have their monitors set up. You may wish to write any UI code with the same setup, so you get a feel for what the application will be like to use.
Depends how big your monitor is. We have 1 28" monitor in landscape and 2 24" monitors in portrait which flank the big monitor.
Works great for pair-programming!
At work, I run my primary monitor (secondary is the laptop screen), in portrait mode. I really like it. I've become spoiled to seeing more code at once. I don't find that it encourages longer methods at all. Occasionally, I run across code that is a bit too wide since the IDE sidebars cramp it a bit, but I largely use Eclipse (Rational Application Developer, but Eclipse-based), so s quick double-click maximizes the code window, and it's very useful. Another double-click and I have my sidebars back.
I also find it a very useful orientation for my email.
I recommend it highly.
Portrait mode widescreen monitors work very nicely for edting code, thank you. However, some monitors have poor viewing angles on one dimension, which would usually be vertical but becomes horizontal in portrait mode. This can make the colours bad or unusable if everything isn't aligned correctly.
I have never given it a try but I would imagine it would work pretty well. I personally like to keep my lines fairly short, and wide screens tend to give me fewer lines of code, so I would give it a try.
It all comes down to personal preference however, what ever allows you to be the most productive and works best for you is the way to go.
For me it's not effective at all. I use IDEs, so in landscape mode I have sidebars to navigate code, navigate project etc.
It's not silly but a matter of opinion. A widescreen in portrait is very nice for writing code, code width has never really been an issue, and being able to see more line of code on the screen is always nice.
The other reason to put a widescreen in portrait is so it matches the height of your other monitor, for example a 30" widescreen next to a 22" widescreen in portrait have close to the same height.
It all comes down to your preference.
I just have one big monitor at my home office.
I tried it once. I didn't like it. I usually have an IDE and IDEs are perfect for widescreen. It's faster to jump around if you can see your function list on the right, file list on the left, etc.
Also, I try to keep my functions small so this usually isn't a problem (I have dual 24"). If your functions are reasonably small, and you have widescreen, you can show two files side by side which is often more useful. Some editors allow you to split the window and scroll to two different parts of the same file. This is also very useful is far better than having 100+ lines on the screen. With my settings, I have 60 lines per screen on an editor. If I split the editor, I can see 120. If I do it again on the other monitor, I can see 240. That's quite a bit of code and generally only useful for very different parts of it.
If you're working mostly with text (as most programmers or other technical folks do), or even documents, then portait mode is much more valuable. In fact, the general trend in displays is all the wrong direction: aspect ratios are squishing landscape displays to a mail slot to better fit the format of movies. Personally, I have never watched a movie on my computers (laptop or desktop), and I'm not about to start now - that's what I have a TV for!
In reality, vertical pixels are the most valuable asset in computing - do whatever you can to get more of them - you won't be sorry you spent the money! I won't even buy a laptop with less than 1024-1080 vertical pixels, since that's the minumum required to display a full page PDF at a readable resolution, and (much) more is better. (Since PDFs make up a large portion of today's online documentation/manuals, that's a very big concern.) You should only think about width after you've got enough vertical pixels.
What I really want is a 15.4" or 16" laptop with a portrait screen - these should still be wide enough to package a full-size keyboard into the base - a FlyBook-style pivot arm would be nice, but isn't required.
I found understanding the intent of related functions are easier when you print them first on paper than understanding them directly from screen, never fails, why? Because you can easily review many lines of code at one glance, no need for incessant scrolling.
The same thing with monitor oriented in portrait mode, you can easily understand the intent of multiple related functions, re-factored or otherwise. But don't let having portrait screen be an excuse to write a function with many lines.
Writing this on stackoverflow using portrait screen :-)
I can easily see many posts at one glance :-)
If you are working with print material, yes, as for source, why not full screen your IDE and close the task panes you do not need?
I find portrait is only useful to me if I'm working on a web site, being able to see the entire page at once helps.
I would say if the monitor is large enough you don't need portrait mode (24" and higher) for writing code.
If the monitor is smaller than that, then portrait mode is preferable.
Ideally what you would have is a single 30" (2560 x 1600) as widescreen to work on your code along with utilities comfortably open nearby and a second smaller monitor nearby to preview the results (I am speaking about web coding specifically here but it would probably apply to most other coding as well - a screen the size of your target audience's screens).
The 30" screens have really come down in price now so it's probably worth the jump up. A 24" screen does have the advantage of significantly larger text at default font sizes. The text on 30" monitors can get to be a bit of grind unless you move up to 14pt.
Good luck.
I have 2 19" monitors currently. One I keep in landscape and one I keep in portrait mode. I find that working on documentation or reading long web pages is easier on the portrait screen. I have used this setup for coding also and find that it does help, however it was a learned habit. lol
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If you stare at a monitor for 8-12 hours a day looking at code, I have a couple questions for those that may have researched the health factors of this or have tried a few options.
To be easy on the eyes, can a monitor be "too big"?
Is there a particular type of display technology over another that reduces eye fatigue?
How bright should your display be in relation to your environment? Is it less fatigue to have a bright environment and a bright monitor over a darker environment?
If you're worried about eye-strain, don't forget the low-tech solution: every 30 minutes, lean back, close your eyes, and rest them for 10 seconds. Or, if you don't want to look like you're napping, gaze out a window or across the room. You should do this regardless of whether you're staring at a monitor, a book, or a sheet of music. Staring at anything for hours at a time is going to strain your eyes.
I use a free timer program to tell me when 30 minutes is up. Whenever I forget to do this, my eyes always feel itchy and tired by the end of the day.
I know this doesn't answer the precise question you asked, but I think you're looking in the wrong place for a solution. Rather than investing in a new monitor, just rest your eyes on a regular basis. There. I just saved you a few hundred bucks.
EDIT: References have been requested, so here they are. There's a decent scientific article on the value of microbreaks here and a review of the literature here.
I've always used the analogy between monitor size (resolution) and desktop size - larger screen, more space to spread out and work.
More important than the physical size is how you set it up - most people have their monitors set way way too bright.
I typically start with maximum contrast and minimum brightness, and work from there. The black on your screen should be real black, not dark gray; the white on your screen should be no brighter than a piece of paper held up next to it.
That said, I do have good screens. At work, dual 22" 1680x1050 LCD; at home, dual 19" 1200x1024 CRT; and my laptop is 1920x1200 17". I've trialled a single 24" LCD - was really nice, not as wide as either dual monitor setup.
Updated 1 Mar: The suggestion from rtpearson to look away from the monitor regularly is good advice.
I was told (years ago) that it is important for your eyes to change focal length regularly.
If you have a seat next to a window, glancing outside while you think is a good way to achieve this. "Walking an email" to a colleague on the same floor can help as well. Using a timer (such as this one I wrote) to remind you to take breaks and rest your eyes is also useful.
I'm not sure it matters. I've worked in investment banks where multiple high-res screens were the norm and am currently doing development work at home on a 9-year old Sony laptop with a 1024 x 768 screen. I haven't noticed any difference in my productivity or my eyestrain in those very different envirobments.
In terms of brightness, what works for me is to adjust the brightness of the display to match the ambient light in the room. At the moment I am running a 24" Samsung Syncmaster and I have to say that I consider leaving it on the brightest setting to be a health hazard.
There are lots of websites to help you calibrate your monitor brightness/contrast. This is just one http://www.displaycalibration.com/brightness_contrast.html
I have a 24" Dell at home, but I doubt many companies would consider that for a development machine.
22" Wide with a resolution of 1680 x 1050 is good, and the price of those monitors are relatively cheap now.
Currently I am working on a 17" 1280 x 1024, as the laptop I got to dev on only got a meager 1280 x 800 screen, which is pretty much useless for coding.
IMO 2 x 17" or 19", or 1 x 22" or larger.
Note: most cheap LCD's have terrible color, example the orange on SO, looks a pale yellow, and thats the best I can get it. The Dell at 5 times the price of a cheap 24" does not have these issues, but you pay for it :( (I still think it was a damn good investment)!
24 inch is minimum for me, and 1680x1050 is too few dots for effective coding. I prefer dual monitors at 1920 x 1200 or better .. i'd really like a pair of 30 inch Samsungs but I need to get richer. Brightness and all that other stuff has never much affected me .. since i'm always coding at night anyway not much of an issue
If you use a CRT screen, make sure you set the refresh rate nice and high. 85Hz is a good value. The default rate on Windows of 60Hz is too low. The flickering makes me feel nauseous. The refresh rate on LCD screens doesn't matter due to high "persistence".
Most people don't know this and leave their screens at 60Hz. Strangely, however, from personal experience, if you tell them directly, "Your refresh rate is wrong", many of them will get defensive—about their refresh rate!—which they probably don't even know what it is. People are strange. I'm glad LCDs are replacing CRTs.
Firstly, yes, there is a limitation of the screen size. I think a monitor is better not bigger than 30 inches. That's also the reason most brands only released monitors with screen size from 19 to 27 inches. Although you can also find a monitor with 100 inches screen size, it's not common. I guess the manufactories did research and find out the most acceptable range of screen size.
Secondly, there are some technologies already. For instance, BenQ has a technology called Flicker-free. “The Flicker-free technology eliminates flickering at all brightness levels and effectively reducing eye fatigue. ” There are also other specifications, too. I also heard about some labs are working on e-ink monitors.
Thirdly, it's difficult to give an exact number of brightness. It depends on the environment light. On the other hand, somebody is sensitive to the brightness, others are not. It's better to try different values and find the best way for yourself.
The app f.lux can really help at night if you're coding on a bright background. It reduces the blue in the screen and thus eye strain. Change the setting to 1hr instead of the default 20 seconds and you won't even notice it.
https://justgetflux.com/