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Why aren't computer monitors more commonly square, specifically in the workplace? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) by Quicky@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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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?

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[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 12 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

We did that for decades. It was pretty miserable.

[–] Quicky@lemmy.world 3 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I reckon that was more to do with the actual screen size though. Screens are a fuckload bigger and cheaper these days.

[–] TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Quicky@lemmy.world 2 points 4 weeks ago

Assuming the software takes that into account too though, yes?

I mean, yes we can rotate screens if the hardware allows for it, but the defaults always seem to be "screen is horizontal, software control is also horizontal", therefore eating up a percentage of the available working document space, which itself, is generally portrait.