Effects of display size and navigation type on a classification task

Abstract

The advent of ultra-high resolution wall-size displays and their use for complex tasks require a more systematic analysis and deeper understanding of their advantages and drawbacks compared with desktop monitors. While previous work has mostly addressed search, visualization and sense-making tasks, we have designed an abstract classification task that involves explicit data manipulation. Based on our observations of real uses of a wall display, this task represents a large category of applications. We report on a controlled experiment that uses this task to compare physical navigation in front of a wall-size display with virtual navigation using panand-zoom on the desktop. Our main finding is a robust interaction effect between display type and task difficulty: while the desktop can be faster than the wall for simple tasks, the wall gains a sizable advantage as the task becomes more difficult. A follow-up study shows that other desktop techniques (overview+detail, lens) do not perform better than pan-andzoom and are therefore slower than the wall for difficult tasks.

The personal cockpit

“…For instance, arranging multiple visualizations side-by-side can allow for faster and easier comparison than navigating between multiple components on a single abstract interface; the user can easily switch views using physical head or body motion and apply spatial memory to recall the location of important items, making for an efficient and intuitive experience. Several research studies have shown examples where interfaces that leverage motion in space over large displays [126,186], multiple displays [21,190] or through virtual navigation [38,121] can provide more efficient navigation or improved understanding of complex tasks.…”

Interaction Techniques for Wall-Sized Screens

“…Kuikkaniemi et al [4] propose a system using direct touch for presentations in public settings. In contrast, Liu et al [6] used a remote touch pad for data manipulation. Zadow et al [13] proposed to use a touch display mounted to user's arm in addition to direct touch.…”

Analyzing Google Earth application in a heterogeneous commodity cluster display wall

“…In addition, Liu et al [22] compare physical navigation in a wall in contrast with a virtual navigation in a desktop for data manipulation tasks by means of quantitative parameters, such as task completion or physical movements of the participants in front of the wall. Unlike this work, we are interested in obtaining a metric which gives a relation between hardware performance and user satisfaction.…”