Paper Reading #22: Mid-air Pan-and-Zoom on Wall-sized Displays

• Title: Mid-air Pan-and-Zoom on Wall-sized Displays
• Reference Information:
• Mathieu Nancel, Julie Wagner, Emmanuel Pietriga, Olivier Chapuis, and Wendy Mackay. 2011. Mid-air pan-and-zoom on wall-sized displays.  In <em>Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems</em> (CHI '11). ACM, New York, NY, USA,  177-186. DOI=10.1145/1978942.1978969 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1978942.1978969
• UIST 2010 New York, New York.
• Author Bios:
•  Mathieu Nancel is a Ph.D. student in HCI.  Focuses on distal interaction techniques.
• Julie Wagner is a postgraduate research assistant.  Wagner currently works with Wendy Mackay on new tangible interfaces.
• Emmanuel Pietriga is the interim leader of INRIA team in Situ where he is a full-time reasearch scientist.  Works on interaction techniques for wall-sized displays.
• Oliver Chapuis is a research scientiest at LRI.  Received his Ph.D. in Mathematics in 1994.
• Wendy Mackay is a research directory with INRIA Saclay in France.  Focuses on the design of interactive systems.
• Summary
• Hypothesis:
• Researchers hypothesized that they could improve interaction with wall-sized displays by studying the effectiveness of several factors as gesture interactions.  These factors included the number of hands, the motion of the gesture and the degrees of freedom for the gesture.   
• Methods
• The researchers designed an experiment in which all patterns of interactions were exhausted.  The participants completed this test in several sessions, with a few guidelines set to minimize fatigue and memory loss.  
• Results
• The researchers took the data collected and analyzed it using several statistical analysis techniques.  The conclusions of their study cannot prove or disprove the effectiveness of any of the techniques, but they do suggest some would be more natural and useful than others.
• Contents
•  Researchers determined that participants preferred gestures utilizing both hands as opposed to single handed gestures.  Similarly, linear motions were preferred (as well as more accurate) than circular ones.  Researchers suggested that 3D free motions as well as one handed circular motions on a 2D surface should be rejected and not used in the future.
• Discussion
• The researchers had a very interesting problem to tackle, but I am undecided as to how effectively they were in proving or disproving their hypothesis.  Regardless, the work done here is exciting because of the possibilities that it implies for the future.  As mentioned in the paper, movies already visualize humans interacting with very large displays using fluid motions as opposed to tools.  While humans have never had to do this in the past, that is not an indication that it cannot be both smooth and natural.



Picture Source: "Mid-air Pan-and-Zoom on Wall-sized Displays"