Aspects of the present invention provide progressive addition lenses (PALs) and techniques for designing PALs that result in improved visual performance for the wearer. PALs of the present invention can have vision zones with widths that are more in line with the actual or functional sizes used by wearers. PALs of the present invention can also introduce controlled amounts of unwanted astigmatism into one or more vision zones. By allowing vision zones to include manageable levels of astigmatism, the resulting PAL can avoid the harsh build-up of astigmatism typically found in conventional PALs at the periphery of the channel and viewing zones. Further, PALs of the present invention can be designed using a merit function to achieve an optimized iterative design that accounts for astigmatism vector orientation and not simply astigmatism magnitude as is the case with conventional PAL design.