As large displays become more affordable, researchers investigate their effects on productivity and try to develop techniques for making the large display user experience more effective. Recent work has demonstrated significant productivity benefits, but has also identified numerous usability issues with current software design not scaling well. Studies show that large displays enable users to create and manage more windows, as well as to engage in more complex multitasking behavior. In this thesis, we developed some user interface design guidelines for large shared displays.

Specifically, empirical studies to compare the effects of using large shared displays against personal displays when each of them is used as a secondary display are presented, showing that large shared display impose higher interruption and comprehension to the user. Empirical and qualitative studies are designed to develop two user interface design guidelines for large shared displays. We designed a system called SuperTrack that uses LSD along with the guidelines to further enhance and improve team efficiency and productivity in collaborative software development environments. Finally, an in-situ evaluation assesses the benefits of SuperTrack based on our developed design guidelines in terms of improving software development efficiency and productivity. Results show that by exposing software development team members to a large shared display, a system that follows our developed user interface guidelines leads to higher communication among the team members and improved group awareness, leading to higher productivity and efficiency.