- Edited
A large part of the time spent on computers are in the browser, and the browser has significant control over certain things. More so than what you can adjust in the OS. There are massive differences is between Chrome and Firefox, and the latter can be tweaked a lot. Just try opening both Chrome and Firefox, and scroll at the same speed. Firefox is the better one.
People don't focus nearly enough on what happens during actual movement on the screen here. And scrolling is the biggest source of movement for most here. There is also research into how the brain processes things during movement and sudden eye movements https://www1.essex.ac.uk/psychology/overlays/2013-207.pdf
Lots of things can be switched on about://flags in Chrome and about:config in Firefox. Just enter it in the address bar. And other stuff can be adjusted thru extensions.
These are the major things that can be tested in browsers:
- Chrome vs Firefox font rendering. In firefox more adjustments can be done on about:config, for example gfx.font_rendering.coretext.enabled
- Chrome vs Firefox scrolling behavior. Just try a complex page on both by scrolling, or test automatically here: https://www.testufo.com/framerates-text
- Disabling/enabling hardware acceleration. In Chrome this seems to make a significant difference and can be done in settings.
- Enabling perfect smooth scrolling in firefox (massive difference)
https://github.com/yokoffing/Betterfox/blob/f71368d34b87195492b3dd061723e110cdf7fac2/SmoothFox.js#L59 - Force sRGB to disable high gammut colors. Just search for srgb in about:config
- Adjust your sharpness, gamma, brightness etc to make patterns and font rendering look better. This can be done by monitor adjustments, thru color profiles on the OS, or by browser extensions like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adjust-screen-brightness/
Test on the different tools at this page: http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/clock_phase.php - Try with vsync on or off. https://www.vsynctester.com/
- Force a specific font on all webpages. There are large differences in how they render, and some are bitmap fonts that doesn't work well on small sizes. In Firefox this can be done by user css or with something like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/enforce-browser-fonts/
- Reduce motion on or off on in the Mac accessibility options. The interface in Firefox as well as many webpages honors this setting.
- View fps changes when testing scrolling or seeing how vsync behaves. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/archi-fps-meter/
- Certain extensions can even be used to create any type of filter overlay. More or less anything can be changed. Reduced saturation, color overlays, slight blur on text, disabling color channels etc. Anything is available with a bit of tinkering. Advanced things can be done with svg filters, and later loaded thru an extension: https://svgfilters.client.io/
- Rendering of fonts and other things can be analyzed with zoom. However this won't necessarily pick up everything that happens when hardware acceleration is on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pixelzoomer/
- Try different framerates. Most monitors and cards use variable refresh rate to make movement smoother, but this can also be a source of eye strain. It can be experimented with thru layout.frame_rate to set a fixed one. You can test any framerate you want that your monitor supports.
I guess most people won't spend the time to experiment with all these, but at least it can be done. And if enough people figure out what options and changes makes a significant difference it is fairly easy to combine them in a browser extension for easy access.