A comparison of competitive and cooperative task performance using spherical and flat displays

While large flat vertical displays may facilitate persistent public sharing of work, they may do so at a cost of limited personal display space when everyone can see each other's activity. By contrast, new form factors, such as spherical displays, support sharing display space by limiting the user's view to at most one hemisphere. In this paper, we investigate how different interactive large display form factors can support differences in sharing of information during competitive and cooperative task conditions. We implemented three different large display types: spherical, flat, and a flat display with divider. Results show that task performance of the flat display with divider did not differ significantly from that of the spherical display. Additionally, we implemented and compared three peeking techniques that facilitated sharing of information. Results show participants peeked significantly more in competitive tasks than they did in cooperative tasks. Usage of peeking techniques between the spherical display and the flat display with divider were similar, and distinct from that of the flat display. Not surprisingly, results show that the affordance of easily glancing at a partner's work on the flat display provided a significant advantage in cooperative tasks.