Leveraging Head Movement for Navigating Off-Screen Content on Large Curved Displays

2026-03-12

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of efficiently accessing off-screen content on large curved displays that present 360-degree media but cover only a 180-degree viewport. The authors propose a natural head-motion-based navigation technique that maps head pose to control signals, integrating rate control functions (linear, sigmoidal, and polynomial) with regional control strategies (continuous, friction, interrupt, and overlay). Through the first systematic evaluation of various control function combinations, the study finds that polynomial rate control yields the best performance in both task completion time and subjective user ratings. In map navigation tasks, this approach significantly outperforms established industrial interaction methods such as click-and-drag and joystick-based navigation.

Technology Category

• Computer Vision: Motion & Tracking
• Intelligent Robots: Localization, Mapping, and Navigation
• Humans and AI: Interaction Techniques and Devices

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Practical large-scale studies of user experience
• Responsible Web: Consent frameworks and practices on the web
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: The sharing economy

Abstract

Large curved displays are ideal for viewing 360 degree content, such as 3D maps, but typically restrict users to a 180 degree viewport, leaving information off-screen. Since users naturally direct their heads toward regions on-screen before interacting, head movements offer a promising alternative for workspace manipulation to bring off-screen content into view. We explore rate control functions (linear, sigmoid, polynomial) and zone control functions (continuous, friction, interrupted, additive) to translate head rotations into workspace control, enabling users to access off-screen content. Polynomial rate control emerges as the best choice, achieving the fastest trial times and highest subjective ratings. Using a map navigation task, our second study demonstrates that users perform better with the polynomial head-based technique than with the industry-standard controller-based methods, click-and-drag and joystick-push, for 360\degree workspace navigation. Based on these findings, we provide guidelines to inform the design of future 360\degree workspace navigation techniques for large curved displays.

Problem

• off-screen content
• large curved displays
• 360 degree navigation
• workspace navigation
• head movement

Innovation

• head movement
• curved displays
• off-screen navigation
• rate control
• 360-degree workspace