Evaluating Two Window Manipulation Techniques on a Large Screen Display

Large screen displays are a common feature of modern meeting rooms, conference halls, and classrooms. The large size and often high resolution of these displays make them inherently suitable for collaborative work, but these attributes cause traditional windowing systems to become difficult to use because the interaction handles become smaller in visual space and in motor space. This may be exacerbated when a user faces the additional cognitive load of active, real-time collaboration. We describe a new window manipulation technique for such a collaborative meeting environment. Its design was inspired by recent collaborative systems in which a user must explicitly take control of a window in order to interact with its contents; actions are otherwise interpreted as navigational. Our Large Screen Optimized (LSO) window manipulation technique utilizes the entire window for manipulations instead of only the title-bar and borders. In addition, LSO includes „snapping regions‟ that automatically move the cursor to the boundary of the window, allowing quick, accurate manipulations involving the edges and corners of the screen. We experimentally validated that our new technique allows users to move and resize windows more quickly than with a traditional window manipulation technique.