Analysis of user behavior on high-resolution tiled displays

Abstract

The use of multiple monitors for personal desktop computing is becoming more prevalent as the price of display technology decreases. The use of two monitors for a single desktop has been shown to have performance improvement in several studies. However, few studies have been performed with more than three monitors. As a result, we report an observational analysis of the use of a large tiled display containing nine monitors (in a 3×3 matrix). The total resolution of the large display is 3840×3072, for a total of 11,796,480 pixels. Over the course of six months we observed the behavior and actions of five users who used the display extensively as a desktop. We relate our observations, provide feedback concerning common usage of how people do and do not use the display, provide common scenarios and results of interviews, and give a series of design recommendations and guidelines for future designers of applications for high-resolution, tiled displays. © IFIP International Federation for Information Processing 2005.