4 ms·

Screens are visual, and human vision is biased to search lateral space over vertical space. This is due to the nature of humans' visuospatial limitations. We'r

Screens are visual, and human vision is biased to search lateral space over vertical space. This is due to the nature of humans' visuospatial limitations. We're largely 2d animals in our movement: front/back & left/right, not so much up down. This is different from animals like birds and fish who constantly have to navigate all 3 dimensions to catch prey and avoid death. We aren't ignorant of vertical space, but horizontal space is much more well attended to by the human brain, spatially and visually. (Video game designers encounter this problem in getting players to look up.) Vertical screens for the masses started with mobile, because constraints of the hand matter more than the biases of vision in that case. Of course as desktop screens become giant, lateral vs vertical space becomes a less important distinction, but understanding why "widescreen" came about over "square" is important. Of course, this all varies by task, but I imagine this is a big reason why 16:9 came about.

Zak 8y ago
When reading text, I believe the opposite to be true. It's why newspapers use relatively narrow columns of text despite having a lot of width to work with. It's much easier to keep my place and process information if I don't have to move my eyes much horizontally. When it comes to scanning for unexpected information, you may be right. A high aspect ratio might be better suited for gaming, at least with games where a significant element is scanning the screen for information and responding to it quickly. One more data point to throw in is that according to Wikipedia, the human field of view is approximately 1.5:1. That suggests to me that 1.5:1 is a good aspect ratio for a general-purpose display. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_view
- ropeadopepope 8y ago
  The problem with both yours and the parent's assertion is context. Newspapers are easy to move so the portion you're reading is in your field of view. Your monitor isn't and it's used for much more than just reading static text. 1.5:1 may be a good reading aspect ratio, but if you need multiple things with that aspect ratio open and on the screen at the same time then you need a wider screen. edit: I just realized a 3:2 screen is basically two 1.5:1 "areas". There are some laptops that have a 3:2 screen mentioned in other places in this thread. I do wish I had a better way of splitting content into readable newspaper style columns, though. Modern web design is pretty antagonistic toward this end. There was a MacOS app that used to do this[0], but it hasn't been updated in years and there isn't an alternative for windows. [0]: http://amarsagoo.info/tofu/ http://amarsagoo.info/tofu/
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    I wish more websites used it as a design choice instead of margins/padding. CSS actually has reasonably good support for it: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Columns/Using_multi-column_layouts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Columns... (Though best supported by Firefox and Edge, with interesting bugs in Chrome and Safari I've seen.) With one major flaw in that -ms-scroll-translation still hasn't made it out of being just an IE 10 suggestion (that Edge still supports and no one else) and into the specs and is a pain to polyfill, but a relatively key ergonomic need: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh973361(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh973361(v=vs.85).a... Windows 8 tried to encourage horizontal scrolling, multi-column design in applications and websites, so Microsoft put some good work into the ergonomics of it, and I appreciated they tried and am still somewhat sad they failed. (I'm proud that my blog uses a multi-column layout for text at wide widths, but given it is my blog I can do weird design craziness like that that amuses/interests me and not worry about confusing potential visitors.)
  - Zak 8y ago
    3:2 is one 1.5:1 area. It's two 1.5:2, or 3:4 areas. I don't find 3:2 to be an especially good aspect ratio for fullscreen text. It's still either too wide or too short, but 3:4 is pretty good, so two columns on 3:2 is two pretty good text areas on a 12-15" diagonal screen. It's also one pretty good text area and some UI, ads, etc... on either side. I should note that physical size is a major constraint here. On a laptop, I want a column of text to be about 4-6" (10-15cm) wide. A desktop screen that's usually farther away can be a bit wider, maybe 8-10" (20-25cm). Having those columns be very tall is fine. I've been using a 24" 9:16 display for having documentation up while coding lately.
tomjohnneill 8y ago
You can use this to your advantage and always win hide and seek by climbing up a tree
ropeadopepope 8y ago
> Of course, this all varies by task, but I imagine this is a big reason why 16:9 came about. The other one is internal real estate. Wide screens mean wider keyboards and larger batteries.
regularfry 8y ago
I thought it was because panel manufacturers could make them cheaper if they used the same components for monitors and TVs.
- lamename 8y ago
  I wondered if I was ignorant of any engineering constraints. Good to know. However, my comment was meant to be more about screens in general, so it includes why TVs are wide in the first place.

Zak 8y ago

When reading text, I believe the opposite to be true. It's why newspapers use relatively narrow columns of text despite having a lot of width to work with. It's much easier to keep my place and process information if I don't have to move my eyes much horizontally. When it comes to scanning for unexpected information, you may be right. A high aspect ratio might be better suited for gaming, at least with games where a significant element is scanning the screen for information and responding to it quickly. One more data point to throw in is that according to Wikipedia, the human field of view is approximately 1.5:1. That suggests to me that 1.5:1 is a good aspect ratio for a general-purpose display. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_view

ropeadopepope 8y ago
The problem with both yours and the parent's assertion is context. Newspapers are easy to move so the portion you're reading is in your field of view. Your monitor isn't and it's used for much more than just reading static text. 1.5:1 may be a good reading aspect ratio, but if you need multiple things with that aspect ratio open and on the screen at the same time then you need a wider screen. edit: I just realized a 3:2 screen is basically two 1.5:1 "areas". There are some laptops that have a 3:2 screen mentioned in other places in this thread. I do wish I had a better way of splitting content into readable newspaper style columns, though. Modern web design is pretty antagonistic toward this end. There was a MacOS app that used to do this[0], but it hasn't been updated in years and there isn't an alternative for windows. [0]: http://amarsagoo.info/tofu/ http://amarsagoo.info/tofu/
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  I wish more websites used it as a design choice instead of margins/padding. CSS actually has reasonably good support for it: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Columns/Using_multi-column_layouts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/CSS_Columns... (Though best supported by Firefox and Edge, with interesting bugs in Chrome and Safari I've seen.) With one major flaw in that -ms-scroll-translation still hasn't made it out of being just an IE 10 suggestion (that Edge still supports and no one else) and into the specs and is a pain to polyfill, but a relatively key ergonomic need: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh973361(v=vs.85).aspx https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh973361(v=vs.85).a... Windows 8 tried to encourage horizontal scrolling, multi-column design in applications and websites, so Microsoft put some good work into the ergonomics of it, and I appreciated they tried and am still somewhat sad they failed. (I'm proud that my blog uses a multi-column layout for text at wide widths, but given it is my blog I can do weird design craziness like that that amuses/interests me and not worry about confusing potential visitors.)
- Zak 8y ago
  3:2 is one 1.5:1 area. It's two 1.5:2, or 3:4 areas. I don't find 3:2 to be an especially good aspect ratio for fullscreen text. It's still either too wide or too short, but 3:4 is pretty good, so two columns on 3:2 is two pretty good text areas on a 12-15" diagonal screen. It's also one pretty good text area and some UI, ads, etc... on either side. I should note that physical size is a major constraint here. On a laptop, I want a column of text to be about 4-6" (10-15cm) wide. A desktop screen that's usually farther away can be a bit wider, maybe 8-10" (20-25cm). Having those columns be very tall is fine. I've been using a 24" 9:16 display for having documentation up while coding lately.

tomjohnneill 8y ago

You can use this to your advantage and always win hide and seek by climbing up a tree

ropeadopepope 8y ago

> Of course, this all varies by task, but I imagine this is a big reason why 16:9 came about. The other one is internal real estate. Wide screens mean wider keyboards and larger batteries.

regularfry 8y ago

I thought it was because panel manufacturers could make them cheaper if they used the same components for monitors and TVs.

lamename 8y ago
I wondered if I was ignorant of any engineering constraints. Good to know. However, my comment was meant to be more about screens in general, so it includes why TVs are wide in the first place.