Using alternative views for layout, comparison and context switching tasks in wall displays

Abstract

In this paper we first present a set of tasks that are relevant to wall display interaction. Among these, layout management, context switching and comparison tasks could benefit from the use of interactive shortcut views of remote areas of a wall display, presented close to the user. Such a shortcut view technique, the ScaleView portals, is evaluated against using a simple magnification lens and walking when performing these tasks. We observed that for a layout and comparison task with frequent context switching, users preferred ScaleView portals. But for simpler tasks, such as searching, regular magnification lenses and walking were preferred. General observations on how the display was used as a peripheral reference by different participants highlighted one of the benefits of using wall sized displays: users may visually refer to the large, spread out content on the wall display, even if they prefer to interact with it close to their location.