Performance and interaction behaviour during visual search on large, high-resolution displays

Abstract

Large, high-resolution displays (LHRDs) allow orders of magnitude more data to be visualized at a time than ordinary computer displays. Previous research is inconclusive about the circumstances under which LHRDs are beneficial and lacks behavioural data to explain inconsistencies in the findings. We conducted an experiment in which participants searched maps for densely or sparsely distributed targets, using 2 million pixel (0.4m × 0.3m), 12 million pixel (1.3m × 0.7m) and 54 million pixel displays (3.0m × 1.3m). Display resolution did not affect the speed at which dense targets were found, but participants found sparse targets in easily identifiable regions of interest 30% faster with the 54-million pixel display than with the other displays. This was because of the speed advantage conferred by physical navigation and the fact that the whole dataset fitted onto the 54-million pixel display. Contrary to expectations, participants found targets at a similar speed and interacted in a similar manner (mostly short panning movements) with the 2-and 12-million pixel displays even though the latter provided more opportunity for physical navigation, though this may have been because panning used velocity-based control. We are applying these findings to the design of a virtual microscope for the diagnosis of diseases such as cancer.

Shared Interaction on a Wall-Sized Display in a Data Manipulation Task

“…Wall-sized displays are well-suited to small groups of users working together on large amounts of data: Multiple users can move freely in front of the display to get an overview or see details without changing its content [2], leading to a variety of collaboration styles [11]. Previous work has demonstrated the benefits of such displays in various tasks including sensemaking [1], way-finding [17], searching [22] and exploratory visual analysis [21]. Liu et al [13] showed the performance advantage, as the amount of data increases, of using a ultra-high resolution wall-sized display vs. a classical desktop setup for a single-user classification task.…”

Effect of Display Resolution on Time to Diagnosis with Virtual Pathology Slides in a Systematic Search Task

“…However, performance varies according to the nature of the task being undertaken; while beneficial for searching for specific objects in an image, too much detail can be distracting for tasks that involve pattern finding [9]. Previously, we conducted an experiment in which participants searched for targets which were either densely distributed (requiring an exhaustive search) or were sparsely distributed [11]. We found that display resolution does not affect the speed at which densely distributed targets are found but results in a significant improvement when searching for sparsely distributed targets in easily identifiable regions of interest (ROIs).…”

PETMiner—A Visual Analysis Tool for Petrophysical Properties of Core Sample Data

“…Trellises [8], [9] reduce the cost because multiple projections of the data are visible at one time, which clearly benefits comparative plotting (R6). Ultra-high-definition displays are likely to provide further benefits by reducing the amount of panning and zooming that users need to perform [28].…”