Exploring Users Pointing Performance on Large Displays with Different Curvatures in Virtual Reality

TL;DR

This study investigates how display curvature affects users' pointing speed and accuracy on large virtual reality displays, revealing that less curved displays enhance performance and influence error rates.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the impact of display curvature on pointing performance in VR, combining traditional and curvature-specific factors.

Findings

Less curved displays lead to faster pointing movements.

Display curvature significantly affects error rates.

Curved displays perform comparably or better than flat displays in throughput.

Abstract

Large curved displays inside Virtual Reality environments are becoming popular for visualizing high-resolution content during analytical tasks, gaming or entertainment. Prior research showed that such displays provide a wide field of view and offer users a high level of immersion. However, little is known about users' performance (e.g., pointing speed and accuracy) on them. We explore users' pointing performance on large virtual curved displays. We investigate standard pointing factors (e.g., target width and amplitude) in combination with relevant curve-related factors, namely display curvature and both linear and angular measures. Our results show that the less curved the display, the higher the performance, i.e., faster movement time. This result holds for pointing tasks controlled via their visual properties (linear widths and amplitudes) or their motor properties (angular widths and amplitudes). Additionally, display curvatures significantly affect the error rate for both linear and angular conditions. Furthermore, we observe that curved displays perform better or similar to flat displays based on throughput analysis. Finally, we discuss our results and provide suggestions regarding pointing tasks on large curved displays in VR.