How large should a digital desk be?: qualitative results of a comparative study.

Qualitative results are presented of a user study comparing a large digital desk with stylus, a digital tablet with stylus, and a standard monitor and mouse. Participants split preferences over the desk and the tablet for a sketching task, but generally preferred the monitor and mouse for an image sorting task. Participants did not object to the relatively lower resolution of the images on the digital desk. Several participants found the surface of the desk to be too large and the tablet to be too small, suggesting that either an intermediate size display is preferable, or that interfaces designed for large work surfaces should focus on putting primary information near the user and less important information in the periphery.