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Simply make text bigger. 125% DPI or 125% "zoom" depending on the OS/application help with eye strain massively, and it surprises me how few colleagues are wil

Simply make text bigger. 125% DPI or 125% "zoom" depending on the OS/application help with eye strain massively, and it surprises me how few colleagues are willing to try it (e.g. "I can see perfectly, why would I increase text size?!"). Between that and lowering a monitor's brightness to below 50% (often around 35% depending on brand), are my biggest tips. Windows now has a blue light filter built right in (Settings -> System -> Display -> Night Light).

falcolas 6y ago
> Simply make text bigger. This is astonishingly effective at reducing eye strain. Even if you can read small text on your screen, it requires a lot of work by the muscles in your eyes to maintain the focus long term. Larger text means less precise focusing is required to be able to read the text.
kiliancs 6y ago
This. At some point I noticed that at the end of the work day my eyes were excessively tired more often than not. This simple change of making reading easier by zooming in just a little made a huge difference.
aviditas 6y ago
I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who does this. I also enable the find the cursor feature because with multiple monitors I tend to squint to hunt for it otherwise.
slothtrop 6y ago
Great point. I read HN at 160% zoom on FF.
- OJFord 6y ago
  ...80%, personally. Even 100 looks comical on most sites, I can't imagine using 160%. But I think this is too dependent on monitor, system font, etc. to generalise.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - travisr 6y ago
    I use 125% on HN with a 23" 1920x1080 monitor. HN text is comically small.
danmaz74 6y ago
Not just reduce the monitor brightness, but also use "dark mode" whenever possible. I read a lot on the web, and found the darkreader extension incredibly useful for my eyes strain.
- rhn_mk1 6y ago
  Dark mode is effectively the same as lowering brightness. If you can lower the brightness to match dark mode's light intensity, it should feel about the same. There are some sources suggesting that all other things equal, black text on white is more legible too.
  - piaste 6y ago
    Surely though, for a given total light intensity, dark mode allows for much higher contrast than the corresponding light mode?
- grliga 6y ago
  after going back and forth between "black on white" and "white on black", I ended up at "black on gray"
davidn20 6y ago
I'm on a 4k screen. You just convinced me to move from 125% to 150% scaling.
llimos 6y ago
Yes. And while you're at it, use double line spacing in your IDE too. You can feel the strain lessen.
accountofme 6y ago
I did it the other way... Bought a cheap 4k@60Hz 50 inch TV ... cost me around AUD$400. I was doing multi screen before, but I like this better I have effectively 4x 1080p screens in a 2x2 array. The only downside is the tv forgets my backlight preferences on any source change or power cycle.

falcolas 6y ago

> Simply make text bigger. This is astonishingly effective at reducing eye strain. Even if you can read small text on your screen, it requires a lot of work by the muscles in your eyes to maintain the focus long term. Larger text means less precise focusing is required to be able to read the text.

kiliancs 6y ago

This. At some point I noticed that at the end of the work day my eyes were excessively tired more often than not. This simple change of making reading easier by zooming in just a little made a huge difference.

aviditas 6y ago

I'm happy to see that I'm not the only one who does this. I also enable the find the cursor feature because with multiple monitors I tend to squint to hunt for it otherwise.

slothtrop 6y ago

Great point. I read HN at 160% zoom on FF.

OJFord 6y ago
...80%, personally. Even 100 looks comical on most sites, I can't imagine using 160%. But I think this is too dependent on monitor, system font, etc. to generalise.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- travisr 6y ago
  I use 125% on HN with a 23" 1920x1080 monitor. HN text is comically small.

danmaz74 6y ago

Not just reduce the monitor brightness, but also use "dark mode" whenever possible. I read a lot on the web, and found the darkreader extension incredibly useful for my eyes strain.

rhn_mk1 6y ago
Dark mode is effectively the same as lowering brightness. If you can lower the brightness to match dark mode's light intensity, it should feel about the same. There are some sources suggesting that all other things equal, black text on white is more legible too.
- piaste 6y ago
  Surely though, for a given total light intensity, dark mode allows for much higher contrast than the corresponding light mode?
grliga 6y ago
after going back and forth between "black on white" and "white on black", I ended up at "black on gray"

davidn20 6y ago

I'm on a 4k screen. You just convinced me to move from 125% to 150% scaling.

llimos 6y ago

Yes. And while you're at it, use double line spacing in your IDE too. You can feel the strain lessen.

accountofme 6y ago

I did it the other way... Bought a cheap 4k@60Hz 50 inch TV ... cost me around AUD$400. I was doing multi screen before, but I like this better I have effectively 4x 1080p screens in a 2x2 array. The only downside is the tv forgets my backlight preferences on any source change or power cycle.