Perceptual Affordances of Wall-Sized Displays for Visualization Applications

International audienceWall-sized displays engulf viewers in large high-resolution information spaces and form intriguing environments for data visualization and monitoring due to several inherent benefits: (i) physical rather than virtual navigation affords a natural pan-and-zoom in the information space to see overview from afar and details up-close; (ii) an enlarged physical space in front of the display enables collaborative viewing; (iii) and millions of pixels support viewing large amounts of data. Nevertheless, when used outside research settings in a work context, wall displays are largely treated as big desktop monitors, both in the type of information we view on them and in how we interact with them. For example they often act only as summary and information sharing tools seen from afar (e.g. to enhance situation awareness), with interaction being inexistent or limited to mice and keyboard. Thus the full potential of interactive large wall technology, such as high resolution or direct-touch interaction are not fully leveraged, despite re- search work on interaction and visualization guidelines. This lack of adoption can be due to the fact that we still need to learn more about (i) what information should be placed on wall displays (replicated information from personal screens, different information, or summaries); and where (how to layout the information); (ii) who interacts and updates this information (real-time feeds, a group leader, everyone); (iii) how to share and more generally interact with them (from a distance using mouse/keyboards or up-close using touch)