Something else: Why stick to the scrolling paradigm? Scrolling is fine if you want a *continuity* of context, i. e. linear access. But as far as I understand we’re dealing with random access in this case. Why not use e.g. a combination of several “layers” and fade over between them, perhaps combined with zooming? Think of a map of the document (in a broader sense) with simultaneous contextually triggered magnification – you could still scroll through the magnified areas of this map and zoom in your area of interest. Mind you, I do not claim that this was encessarily a better solution. But I would like to point out that it seems important to me to take a step back and consider other possibilities outside the given metaphor of representation. Never forget that it is not a physical object that is dealt with but *data*. And data does not have any “natural” appearance but is more or less infinitely malleable.

I am new here, just wanted to say hi and this is a great place to visit regularly…keep the good work going on…..I will be checking regularly for updates and news.

Traders’ desks at hedge funds in mid-town Manhattan might be on the verge of considering how big is too big. But commercial and residential real estate brokers, doctors and nurses and other clinicians, teachers and professors and students, and even architects, all work within budgets that only now are starting to provide reasonably sharp monitors, albeit still too small. It’ll be great fun when they all join the mix of workers who can afford monitors that might, just might, be *too* big for their purposes.

With larger screen real estate, we have to (a) modify our working methods and (b) develop new interaction models. Simply put, moving your mouse from one corner to the opposite one and targeting an object increases in difficulty as the screen size increases. The eye loses the cursor, the accuracy of the movement drops off, reacquisition of the new location is harder, etc.

Direct action (screen touches) and gestural actions are likely to be much better for these large displays, especially if the user doesn’t have to touch and drag the entire distance. (For example: Touch the object, start to drag, during the drag touch another screen area and release the first, continue the drag — screen object teleportation.)

take a look at the procs over the past few years. If you were an academic trying to get published there, you’d understand what I meant. There is lots of very solid research out there that isn’t getting published at confs like chi because its seen as having “been done” and “last years news”. And on the other hand, relatively lightweight stuff that makes a cute hour-long presentation tends to get through. e.g. ethno studies in “new” settings are much more likely to get published. Whacky ubicomp tech that doesnt actually do anything useful tends to get published. And so on….

think about it…

My write-up really doesn’t do the papers any justice in terms of representing their study designs. The purpose was more to give a brief summary of the results. Also, the two studies do confirm each others’ findings to some extent: both found efficiency gains from having a larger display area. This had also already been found previously.

I would actually expect HCI to have quite a high standard in terms of experiment design, since its background lies partly in experimental psychology and therefore a lot of psychologists have a hand in the peer review process.

Regarding HCI researchers’ whims: I’ve never really felt that they are such fashion-whores. The ones I’ve met all feel passionate about the particular area they’re interested in, and will spend years and years of their life studying and promoting it. However, since the field is so closely tied to developments in the technology industry, they always have to study the aspects of their interest within the context of a particular, current technology. This may make it appear like they keep changing their topic.