Masato Horita

Courtyard: integrating shared overview on a large screen and per-user detail on individual screens

The operation of complex real-world systems, such as industrial plants, requires that multiple users cooperate in monitoring and controlling large amounts of information to supervise complex processes. The Court yard system supports such cooperative work by integrating an overview on a shared large screen and detail on individual screens. This integration is realized by two approaches: (1) providing an implicit way of transferring mouse and keyboard control between the shared and individual screens, and (2) supporting association between the overview on the shared screen and per-user detail on individual screens. Courtyard allows a user to move a mouse pointer between the shared and individual screens as though they were contiguous, and to access per-user detailed information on the user’s individual screen simply by pointing to an object on the shared screen. Courtyard selects the detailed information according to the tasks assigned to the pointing user under a division of labor. The former approach results in an interface that is as simple, intuitive and consistent to use as that for a single screen. The latter enables a user to retrieve easily and quickly detailed information needed for performing the assigned tasks without being distracted by information for others.