In our company a lot of people using a laptop with an external screen. Recently the question arose how to arrange the virtual screens.
The physical arrangement is like the following:
The virtual arrangement could be either
a) Standard arrangement.
Usability problems:
- Moving the cursor from on screen to other is on a different vertical line and you often lose the cursor.
- Corners in the center are breaking Fitt's law. Discussed e.g. at ux.se: multiple monitors and screen corners
b) Mimic physical arrangement
Usability problems:
- The cursor can get stuck at the middle edges.
- If you lost the cursor it's harder to find it again.
What is the best way to arrange screens? How someone can support them physically or virtually?
Update 2017: After a few years of testing this. Actually it doesn't really matter, but I can recommend to use the standard arrangement as you may slightly rearrange the screens from time to time. Meanwhile the angle of the laptop screen is different and little behind the main screen so the jump of the mouse cursor is fluid in the 3d space ;)