A multiscale interaction technique for large, high-resolution displays

This paper explores the link between users' physical navigation, specifically their distance from their current object(s) of focus, and their interaction scale. We define a new 3D interaction technique, called multiscale interaction, which links users' scale of perception and their scale of interaction. The technique exploits users' physical navigation in the 3D space in front of a large high-resolution display, using it to explicitly control scale of interaction, in addition to scale of perception. Other interaction techniques for large displays have not previously considered physical navigation to this degree. We identify the design space of the technique, which other researchers can continue to explore and build on, and evaluate one implementation of multiscale interaction to begin to quantify the benefits of the technique. We show evidence of a natural psychological link between scale of perception and scale of interaction and that exploiting it as an explicit control in the user interface can be beneficial to users in problem solving tasks. In addition, we show that designing against this philosophy can be detrimental.