Information Access Costs with a Wide-Angle Desktop Display

In choosing where to present information on large displays, multiple monitors, and head-mounted displays, the potential arises to create access costs associated with placing information outside of the immediate field of view. The current experiment examined performance tradeoffs associated with increasing information access effort ranging from 16 to 128 degrees of lateral separation on a wide-angle desktop display. During a spatial integration task, participants indicated whether grid coordinate numbers shown in one location on the screen were within a designated zone on a map displayed in another location. Results showed a significant non-linear trend of head movements, a linear trend of response time, and no effect on error, when the two pieces of information were displayed at greater separation distances. These results have implications for designing visual displays, suggesting where information access effort needs to be considered when scanning for information outside of the immediate field of view.