Internal And External Environments: The Human Visual System

The human visual system has two visual pathways, central and peripheral. Central vision pinpoints object and peripheral vision draws a gist of surroundings. In web browsing, peripheral vision provides a synopsis of the web page and central vision pinpoint objects to guide user actions. For example, to initiate a click, the call-to-action button should fall within the range of the central vision. A designer constructs visual cues to guide user’s vision to different parts of the web page. Since large displays are set to a higher resolution by default, incorrect design considerations lead to two distinct browsing problems. A) The page components and fonts do not magnify proportionately in line with the resolution. At higher resolution, the page

Rear seating is preferred as it gives the audience a full view of the screen. When seated at the back the entire screen falls within the peripheral range. This idea echoes back to web browsing. While browsing a user naturally adjusts the viewing distance based on the monitor size. To get the full view of the webpage user prefers sitting farther from the screen. This broadens the peripheral scope of the vision. Since larger screen has a wider viewport, it accommodates more information leaving the page overloaded with information. As the page components and the font do not magnify proportionately it becomes difficult for the users to scan the page from a distance. Everything looks tiny. While things look tiny, it forces the user to come closer to the monitor for a superior clarity. Now the peripheral range reduces consequently expanding the likelihood of missing important cues falling outside the periphery. To achieve visual comfort, it forces users to twist the neck towards the visual object. This is a common phenomenon for low vision users as they tend to move closer to the monitor for legibility and clarity. Generally, horizontal head movement occurs when eye excursions are greater than 6 to 8 degrees which lead to better visual comfort at the expense of postural discomfort

Those independent findings can be summarized as: The more physical screen land you have (i.e. the larger the display size) the greater amount of information and applications a user can see instantly. The more physical screen real estate you have (i.e. the larger the display size) the more of your data and applications you can see at once [7]. Jeff Atwood describes a paradox where large displays can increase productivity up to a certain size, but the productivity drops after a certain point because users spend more time managing the space [11]. The Pfeiffer Group (2005), claims that high resolution displays such as the 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display results in measurable productivity and efficiency gains. The paper claims that productivity gains were present in professional design and publishing, digital imaging and digital video. The gains are also in general productivity and office applications such as word processors and spreadsheets [8]. However, there is no concrete evidence that large displays can advance the web browsing experience. At present, the focus is towards mobile usability and how designs can be made better for mobile applications. There is hardly any research done on how to design pages better for bigger screens. Veland (no year) states there is no relevant design guidelines and specific knowledge of the area of large screens