A simple story of the interface between man and machine. By healing the machine, can we heal ourselves?

Until last year Jason, we will call him, because that’s his name, could spend up to 16 hours a day coding on-screen, for days on end, because that’s his job, and that’s as long as he could because by then, he couldn’t see straight anyway.

He was also aware the last four hours were always a bit sketchy with increased errors that had to be corrected, but that’s the way it was.

But one auspicious day, he received an invitation to Score My Screen and used the Display Screen Optimiser (D.S.O.) to optimise his display screen Colour Contrast Calibration in accordance with ISO 30071.1

Having completed them both and installed the D.S.O. optimal colour background, he forgot about them and carried-on coding.

Sixteen hours a day, day in day out.

A while later, he, Jason, realised he was perhaps sleeping better, seemed less fatigued, had made fewer unforced errors, and was more efficient and could still see straight at the end of his working day.

Jason wondered what was different because he wasn’t doing anything different than he was before.

And then the penny dropped. It was his screen that was different, and now so was he.

Jason was able to carry on regardless, doing what he does too often for as long as he does, but he feels better.

So, maybe by healing his machine, he has healed himself? Or at the very least mitigated harms that were heading his way.

And how many of you remember the Remington shaver ad? ‘It was so good the guy bought the company’.

Jason is now working with the S.M.A.R.T. Foundation U.K., supporting and project managing clinical trials with a well-known university to take the D.S.O. to the next level.

Perhaps, as he had a happy ending, maybe you could too?

• ***

Nigel Dupree is the founder of The S.M.A.R.T. Foundation and creator of the DSO.

He curates a monthly newsletter that explores the interface between vision stress and workplace wellbeing. You can sign up for it here.