Tracking User Navigation and Performance on High-Resolution Displays using a Dynamic Real-Time Strategy Game

The use of multiple monitors on a single computer is increasing as the cost of monitors goes down. Unfortunately, little is known how performance and navigation are affected as people increase the number of monitors they use. This paper discusses the outcome of an experiment that tracked the navigation and performance of par- ticipants as they played a popular strategy game on one, four, and nine monitors. The results show that having only one monitor was a clear disadvantage in both performance and the percent of time participants navigated. Participants performed significantly better on the four and nine screens than the one screen. Also, the larger the screen, the less participants navigated. On the one screen, par- ticipants navigated 27% of the game, while only 12% on the four screens, and 6% on the nine screens. There was also found to be a positive transfer from the smaller to larger screens, but no trans- fer (positive or negative) from the larger to smaller screens. How results can be generalized to geospatial visualizations, military ap- plications, and surveillance systems are discussed.