Bigger is not always better

Dynamic peephole navigation is an increasingly popular technique for navigating large information spaces such as maps. Users can view the map through handheld, spatially aware displays that serve as peepholes and navigate the map by moving these displays in physical space. We conducted a controlled experiment of peephole map navigation with 16 participants to better understand the effect of a peephole's size on users' map navigation behavior, navigation performance, and task load. Simulating different peephole sizes from 4' (smartphone) up to 120' (control condition), we confirmed that larger peepholes significantly improve learning speed, navigation speed, and reduce task load; however, this added benefit diminishes with growing sizes. Our data shows that a relatively small, tablet-sized peephole can serve as a 'sweet spot' between peephole size and both user navigation performance and user task load.