Most desks put a monitor about ten centimetres too low. The stand it shipped with was designed to be cheap to box, not to match your chair, your desk height or how tall you happen to be sitting. Here is how to work out the right height, and how much you need to add to get there.
Start with the top edge, not the middle
Sit the way you actually sit — not the upright version you adopt when someone is watching. Look straight ahead. The point your eyes land on should be at or just below the top edge of the screen, not the centre. Your eyes travel down more comfortably than they travel up, so a screen that starts at eye level and continues below it keeps your head balanced over your shoulders instead of tipped back.
If you wear progressive or bifocal lenses, go lower — usually another five to eight centimetres — so you are reading through the correct part of the lens without lifting your chin.
Then set the distance
An arm's length is the old rule and it still holds for most screens up to 27 inches: sit back, stretch out your arm, and your fingertips should roughly brush the glass. Larger or ultrawide screens want more room, not less. If you find yourself leaning in, the fix is usually text size, not distance.
And finally the tilt
Ten to twenty degrees back at the top. The screen surface should sit roughly perpendicular to your line of sight, which means the bottom edge comes toward you slightly. A screen tilted forward throws overhead light straight back at you.
Working out how much height you need
- Sit properly and have someone mark the height of your eye line on the wall behind the desk (a sticky note works).
- Measure from the desk surface to that mark.
- Measure from the bottom of your monitor's panel to the top edge.
- Subtract the second number from the first. That is roughly the riser height you are missing, allowing for the stand your monitor already sits on.
Most people land somewhere between 8 and 12 cm. That is the range our risers, stands and mounts are built around — the Basalt Wide Solid Wood Riser and the Meridian Storage Monitor Riser both sit in it, and both put the space underneath to work.
Two screens, one rule
Match the top edges to each other first, then match the pair to your eye line. Two screens at different heights is the setup most likely to leave you turning and tilting all day. If your desk cannot take two risers side by side, a clamp-on arm like the Nomad Dual Monitor and Laptop Mount gets both panels off the surface entirely.
What the height change actually buys you
Two things, and they are worth being honest about. The first is that you stop looking down, which most people notice within a day. The second is the desk real estate underneath — on a storage riser, that is where the keyboard, the notebook and the pile of things you keep moving finally live.
Setup guidance is general, not medical advice. If you have a specific discomfort or a condition, talk to a qualified professional about your workstation.