The firm I work for performs a variety of testing services. This picture is a DC volt meter full scale reading -3.0 to +3.0. Typical battery readings are 2.15-2.35 (float to equalize). The user has to be fast and familiar with the scale to read the numbers beyond the decimal point.
Now a days with digital meters apprentices often give us readings into the 1000s of a volt, which is really not necessary. We have to tell them just because you can obtain some data it is not always necessary.
I agree; sometimes extreme accuracy is useless. When I was taking science class in High School, we were working problems on a reflecting telescope. One of the kids decided that his answer had to involve subtracting the mirror's 12" focal length from the distance to the object that was being observed. Unfortunatly for him, it was the SUN! There's something very silly about subtracting 12" from 93 million miles in the name of accuracy.
The meter looks like it has a narrow mirror below the scale graduations. What is that for?
When the needle image in the mirror is at its narrowest, you know you are perpendicular to the needle and therefore you have no parallax error.
If you look at the needle at a slant, the image location on the scale is either above or below the actual reading. That is called parallax. Many high resolution gauges and meters have the mirrored scales and the thin needle like pointers.