Abstract

The availability of large high-resolution displays and high-bandwidth digital display interfaces allows us to conduct a user study that compares the effects of a large high-resolution display and smaller displays on productivity and satisfaction for complex office tasks, where we control for pixel density, color, brightness and contrast of the displays using a virtual machine and one single large high-resolution display connected to a single high-end computer. We discuss the advances and current state of display technologies that enable this study and we discuss how our study differs from earlier related work. Participants perform three abstract tasks that simulate complex office work on displays of three different sizes and resolutions but with the same pixel density. Both quantitative and qualitative data has been collected and analyzed. We describe the effects that larger displays have on task completion time, error rate and satisfaction compared to smaller displays. Results indicate that large displays significantly improve productivity of complex office tasks and that users prefer larger displays over smaller displays.