When David Meets Goliath: Combining Smartwatches with a Large Vertical Display for Visual Data Exploration

We explore the combination of smartwatches and a large interactive display to support visual data analysis. These two extremes of interactive surfaces are increasingly popular, but feature different characteristics—display and input modalities, personal/public use, performance, and portability. In this paper, we first identify possible roles for both devices and the interplay between them through an example scenario. We then propose a conceptual framework to enable analysts to explore data items, track interaction histories, and alter visualization configurations through mechanisms using both devices in combination. We validate an implementation of our framework through a formative evaluation and a user study. The results show that this device combination, compared to just a large display, allows users to develop complex insights more fluidly by leveraging the roles of the two devices. Finally, we report on the interaction patterns and interplay between the devices for visual exploration as observed during our study.