{"id":"9f96cf13-d7ad-4901-bf9f-f7425ec46405","arxiv_id":"2507.15433","paper_version":1,"verdict":"CONDITIONAL","confidence":"MODERATE","novelty_score":5.0,"correctness_risk":"medium","formal_verification":"none","parameter_count":0,"one_line_summary":"Existing desktop UI tools mostly support 1:1 scale design on wall-sized displays, but they need better menus, bigger cursors, and the 12 new guidelines the authors propose.","lead":"Researchers tested whether designers can use everyday desktop tools like Figma and Miro to design apps directly on giant wall-sized displays at full size. They found the tools mostly work but need new features, and using a tablet alongside the wall feels most comfortable.","discovery_kind":"new_application","skeptic_critique":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"The 1:1 scale manipulation is never instrumented: browser zoom is set to 200% in Study 2 and no calibration of Miro/Figma units to physical WSD pixels is reported, so the central condition may not have been tested.","rationale":"The reader's CONDITIONAL verdict rests mainly on the small sample and the reproduction-only task, which are real and honestly stated limitations. I agree those warrant caution, but I see a more fundamental, unacknowledged issue: the paper never demonstrates that the tool's coordinate space was mapped to physical pixels, and the reported 200% browser zoom in Section VI-A actively suggests the mapping was off by a factor of about two unless compensating measures were taken. If the scale was not 1:1, the headline finding that participants appreciated designing at 1:1 scale is not supported by the data as reported. The paper is otherwise careful and transparent, and the feature comparison and many of the guidelines (menu reachability, bezel issues, furniture ergonomics) would likely survive even if the scale calibration is corrected. The concern is therefore best resolved by a concrete calibration check rather than outright rejection: if the check shows the setup was indeed 1:1 (for example, because Miro's internal zoom was set to compensate), the paper can be accepted with the reader's original conditions. If the check shows 2:1 scaling, the central claim would need to be substantially revised. I recommend keeping the verdict CONDITIONAL, explicitly conditioned on this verification.","tokens_in":26106,"tokens_out":7589,"duration_ms":85774,"concrete_test":"Reproduce the WSD-VW setup of Section VI: create a 1,920 x 1,080 Miro rectangle at Miro zoom 100% with Chrome zoom set to 200% as reported, and measure its physical footprint on the wall. A true 1:1 setup requires the rectangle to span exactly the width of one 1080p tile (use the actual tile pitch; roughly 0.292 m for typical 55-inch tiles). If it spans approximately twice that, the study ran at 2:1 rather than 1:1. Then re-run at least one condition with browser zoom at 100% and Miro zoom calibrated to the native physical resolution, and check whether the observed usability issues and modality preferences replicate. Apply the same measurement to the Figma study using the zoom level actually used there.","verdict_should_be":"CONDITIONAL","load_bearing_attack":"The paper's central claim depends on participants actually designing at 1:1 physical scale, yet the methods never verify that one design-tool unit corresponds to one physical pixel on the wall. The only explicit scaling information is in Section VI-A: \"The zoom level in the browser was set to 200%\" for Miro. Browser zoom scales the entire web page, including the canvas; unless Miro's internal zoom was simultaneously set to 50% (or the WSD's CSS device-pixel ratio was otherwise compensated), all design objects were rendered at roughly 2x their intended physical size. Study 1 with Figma reports no calibration check either. If the canvas was not 1:1 with the physical display, then the central manipulation—designing at real size—did not actually occur, and all observations about appreciating 1:1 scale, plus scale-related guidelines, are about an uncalibrated zoom level rather than true 1:1 scale. Section VII-D acknowledges learning effects and the small sample, but does not list scale calibration as a limitation, and the conclusion directly attributes the participants' appreciation to \"prototyping at 1:1 scale.\" This concern is more load-bearing than generalizability alone because it attacks the independent variable itself.","agreement_with_reader":"partial"},"referee_report":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","summary":"The paper investigates whether desktop-optimized UI prototyping tools can be used to design at 1:1 scale on wall-sized displays (WSDs). It comprises a technology review of 19 design tools against a feature list derived from a first exploratory study, followed by two user studies: Study 1 (n=1) with Figma and Study 2 (n=2) with Miro, across two WSD setups and three interaction methods (keyboard with touchpad, direct touch, synchronized tablet). The main findings are that participants appreciated designing at large scale, that the tablet was experienced as comfortable by some participants, that each modality has distinct benefits and drawbacks, and that no existing tool fully supports this use case. The paper proposes twelve design guidelines and concludes that existing desktop-optimized tools require further considerations in terms of placement of UI elements and additional features.","tokens_in":26298,"tokens_out":8312,"duration_ms":94006,"significance":"The work addresses a genuine gap: there is little prior research on prototyping UIs directly on WSDs at real size. The feature matrix (Table II) and the detailed qualitative observations (Studies 1 and 2) are valuable empirical material, and the authors are transparent about several limitations (small number of participants, reproduction task, learning effect) in Section VII-D. The supplementary materials and explicit reporting of participant strategies are strengths. However, the central claim hinges on the fidelity of the 1:1-scale manipulation, which is not verified in the paper.","major_comments":[{"comment":"The central condition '1:1 scale' is not instrumented. Section III-C describes the system but does not state how design-tool units were mapped to physical WSD pixels. Section VI-A reports 'The zoom level in the browser was set to 200%' to make the main menu usable, which scales the entire Miro canvas; if Miro's internal zoom was not simultaneously reduced (e.g., to 50%), every object was rendered at approximately twice the intended physical size. No calibration check is reported for the Figma study either. The paper's conclusions that 'designing at 1:1 scale was appreciated' (Section VI-B, VIII) therefore attribute the observations to a condition that may not have occurred. Section VII-D lists limitations but omits this. Without an explicit calibration procedure (e.g., placing a known-size element on the canvas and measuring it on the wall, or setting the tool's zoom to compensate), the independent variable is not verified, which affects the validity of the scale-specific guidelines in Section VII-C.","section":"VI-A, III-C"},{"comment":"The abstract's claim that 'tablet-based interaction proved to be the most comfortable' is not supported by the reported data. In Section VII-A, P1 explicitly preferred touch and ranked the tablet second; only P2 ranked the tablet first. With only two participants in Study 2, this is an overgeneralization. The conclusion in Section VIII uses the more cautious 'seems to be,' but the abstract states it categorically. The wording should be revised to reflect the disagreement, e.g., 'the tablet was preferred by one participant and ranked second by the other.'","section":"Abstract, VII-A"}],"minor_comments":[{"comment":"The sentence about browser zoom would be clearer if it also reported the Miro canvas zoom level and the resulting effective scale relative to the physical display.","section":"VI-A"},{"comment":"The feature matrix in Table II contains several 'unknown' entries (e.g., max surface size for Miro, Excalidraw, InVision); the conclusion that Miro is the most suitable should be phrased as 'among the tools with sufficient information,' or the method for obtaining these values should be documented.","section":"V"},{"comment":"The search methodology in the technology review is described only as 'a search using the engine Google with the keywords between July and December 2024'; providing the exact queries and search dates would improve reproducibility.","section":"V"},{"comment":"The limitations section lists several threats to validity (small sample, reproduction task, learning effect) but does not acknowledge the absence of an explicit 1:1 calibration check, which should be added if the study is revised.","section":"VII-D"}],"recommendation":"reject","confidential_remarks":"The paper would need a fundamental verification of the 1:1-scale manipulation before the reported observations can be attributed to design at real size. As it stands, the central claim rests on an unverified independent variable, and this cannot be fixed by wording alone without new data or evidence that the browser zoom was compensated. I would be willing to reconsider a revised version that either demonstrates the calibration or substantially reframes the contribution as being about large-scale wall display design rather than exact 1:1 scale. The abstract's claim about tablet comfort should also be softened."},"author_rebuttal":null,"desk_editor":{"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","letter":"Two things to know. First, this is a genuinely useful exploratory study: it is the first to try designing at 1:1 scale on wall-sized displays with existing desktop UI tools, and it produces a practical 19-tool feature matrix and 12 concrete design guidelines. The observations of physical fatigue, tool-panel reachability, and modality trade-offs are detailed and credible. Second, the central condition is never verified: the paper never calibrates the design tool's coordinate space to the physical pixels of the WSD. In Study 2 the browser zoom was set to 200% (Section VI-A), and nothing indicates that Miro's canvas was simultaneously compensated to 50% or that the device pixel ratio was accounted for. If the canvas was rendered at 200%, all design objects were at roughly twice their intended physical size, meaning participants were designing at 2:1 rather than 1:1. Study 1 with Figma reports no calibration either. This is more load-bearing than the small sample, because it attacks the independent variable.\n\nWhat the paper does well: The authors are honest about the exploratory nature. They state the learning effect, the small n, and the reproduction-only task in Section VII-D. The guidelines in VII-C are sensible and specific (movable context menus, lockable viewport, dissociated tablet view, etc.). The feature matrix is a useful resource. These contributions hold up even if the exact scale is uncertain.\n\nSoft spots beyond calibration: The abstract says tablet-based interaction 'proved to be the most comfortable,' but one participant preferred touch and the other preferred tablet; with n=2 that claim is not supported. The guidelines are thematic summaries of the studies' own observations—normal for qualitative work, but they should be labeled as hypotheses. There are no quantitative outcomes, so the conclusions should be worded accordingly.\n\nThe paper is for HCI researchers and practitioners working on large-display design. It deserves a serious referee, but the authors need to instrument the 1:1 scale (e.g., render a known-size object and measure it) or soften the 1:1 claim, and fix the abstract overclaim. I would engage with it in review.","headline":"Genuinely useful exploratory study, but the 1:1 scale condition is never instrumented; worth review with major revision.","tokens_in":26848,"tokens_out":3728,"would_cite":false,"duration_ms":39750,"reading_group":"maybe","serious_thinker":"yes","would_accept_peer_review":true},"rs_alignment":null,"lean_confirmation":null,"pith_extraction":{"msc":[],"pacs":[],"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","headline":"The paper shows that 1:1 scale prototyping on wall-sized displays is appreciated and feasible with desktop tools, but none of the nineteen tools reviewed fully supports it; Miro is most suitable, and tablet interaction is most comfortable.","keywords":["wall-sized display","UI design","design at 1:1 scale","user study","large-scale display","prototyping tools","interaction modality","Miro"],"falsifier":"Run a controlled study with a larger sample, for example twelve designers, half using Miro and half using a tool with retractable panels and viewport locking, on an open-ended design task across several wall sizes; if designers show no consistent preference for tablet input, no reduction in fatigue, or no advantage for the guideline-compliant tool, the central claim would be contradicted.","tokens_in":25890,"feed_emoji":"🖥️","tokens_out":8241,"duration_ms":80539,"temperature":0.7,"pith_summary":"The paper asks whether existing desktop-optimized user interface design tools can be used to prototype at a true 1:1 scale directly on wall-sized displays, and what would make such tools fit this context. It combines a review of 19 design tools with two exploratory user studies, one with Figma and one with Miro, on a curved and a flat wall display, using touch, keyboard-with-touchpad, and a synchronized tablet. The authors find that designing at actual size is appreciated because it gives an immediate, accurate sense of size and placement, but that no existing tool fully supports it. Miro is the most suitable of the 19 tools, tablet-based interaction is the most comfortable modality, and a deliberate mix of modalities is the most promising direction. The paper turns these observations into twelve design guidelines for a dedicated wall-display design tool.","feed_headline":"For 1:1 wall-display design, the tablet beats touch and keyboard","feed_subtitle":"Two studies and a 19-tool review find Miro most suitable, yet no existing tool fully supports true-scale design.","key_machinery":"The carrying mechanism is a two-part instrument: a fixed reproduction task and a feature checklist. Participants reproduced one previously built wall-display UI, containing text, sliders, a graph, and a social media feed, at actual size on a curved 3.64 m display and a flat 7 m display, under three input conditions: touch, wireless keyboard with touchpad, and synchronized tablet. Study 1 with Figma produced six concrete issues that were converted into a list of required tool features; that list was then applied to 19 tools, leading to the selection of Miro for Study 2. The combination of the two wall geometries, the three modalities, and the feature matrix is what lets the paper separate tool-design problems from hardware problems and from interaction-modality problems.","core_discovery":"On the paper's own terms, the central discovery is that 1:1 prototyping on wall-sized displays is feasible with current tools, yet the tools fail in systematic, fixable ways. The first study with Figma identifies six recurring issues: physical fatigue, unreachable menus and property panels, tool text that is hard to read from a distance, the sheer interaction surface, objects resetting to the center on reopen, and tool panels occluding part of the wall so the design surface is no longer truly 1:1. The feature matrix built from those issues shows that none of the 19 tools satisfies all requirements; Miro comes closest because its main menu sits on the left at a reachable height, its context menus appear next to the selected object, and it preserves positions on reopen. The second study shows that the tablet's dissociated viewport is the most comfortable interaction pattern, while touch gives the best spatial sense but causes fatigue, and the keyboard offers precision but a hypersensitive touchpad. These results ground the paper's twelve design guidelines, which center on reachable menus, movable or retractable panels, viewport locking, a second device with an independent view, and careful attention to the physical furniture.","pith_inferences":["If these patterns generalize, collaborative wall-scale design becomes plausible across distances: the tablet already separates the control surface from the display surface, so the same architecture could support a remote designer controlling a shared wall.","The feature checklist could serve as a quick heuristic evaluation for any new or updated tool claiming wall-display support, even before running user studies.","A natural next experiment is to add viewport-lock and reset-view buttons to an existing tool like Miro and measure whether unwanted zoom and pan events and fatigue drop, which would test the causal story behind the guidelines.","The 1:1 method also invites systematic readability and accessibility checks from multiple viewing distances, which the current study observed only informally."],"forward_implications":["Future design tools for wall-sized displays should place creation menus and object properties near the work area rather than at fixed screen edges.","Tool panels and dialogs must be movable or hideable so the entire wall surface can serve as the design canvas.","A synchronized handheld device with a viewport decoupled from the wall should be part of the setup, since it allows precise close-up work without disturbing the on-wall view.","Designers should be able to switch among touch, tablet, and keyboard within a single session, because each modality has distinct strengths.","Physical environment is part of the design tool: height-adjustable, movable, tilting tables and available chairs reduce fatigue and extend productive session length."],"supporting_citations":[{"why":"The authors' prior conference study on Figma with wall-sized displays; this paper explicitly extends that preliminary usability work.","marker":"[1]"},{"why":"Practitioners' challenges in designing interfaces for large displays; provides the observation that prototyping at original size is often impossible.","marker":"[16]"},{"why":"Survey of interactive visualization on large high-resolution displays; defines wall-sized displays and catalogs the interaction modalities the studies rely on.","marker":"[17]"},{"why":"The authors' earlier enumeration of challenges for large interactive displays; frames the designer-support gap that motivates the 1:1 approach.","marker":"[20]"},{"why":"Figma, the desktop-optimized design tool tested in Study 1; its fixed menus and panel occlusion generate the issue list that drives the feature requirements.","marker":"[22]"},{"why":"Miro, the design tool selected and tested in Study 2; its context menus, position preservation, and tablet sync make it the most suitable of the 19 tools reviewed.","marker":"[23]"},{"why":"The previously built wall-display UI that participants reproduced in both studies; fixes the task and lets observation focus on tool manipulation.","marker":"[43]"},{"why":"Pointing facilitation techniques used as the proposed remedy for moving a cursor across very large displays, feeding the design guidelines.","marker":"[50]"}],"fun_headline_variants":["Tablet best for 1:1 design on wall-sized displays, tools falter","1:1 wall-scale design: tablet wins, existing tools fall short","Designing on giant screens: tablet interaction most comfortable","Wall-sized display design: tablet beats touch and keyboard","True-scale design on walls: tablet dominates, tools lacking"],"cache_read_input_tokens":3200,"weakest_assumption_plain":"The findings rest on three participants reproducing a single existing interface on two specific wall displays, so the observed preferences and guidelines may not transfer to creative, open-ended design work or to other wall configurations.","fun_headline_variants_meta":{"raw":{"variants":["Tablet best for 1:1 design on wall-sized displays, tools falter","1:1 wall-scale design: tablet wins, existing tools fall short","Designing on giant screens: tablet interaction most comfortable","Wall-sized display design: tablet beats touch and keyboard","True-scale design on walls: tablet dominates, tools lacking"]},"model":"deepseek-v4-flash","effort":"low","cost_usd":0.000658,"raw_usage":{"total_tokens":3024,"prompt_tokens":974,"completion_tokens":2050,"prompt_tokens_details":{"cached_tokens":384},"prompt_cache_hit_tokens":384,"prompt_cache_miss_tokens":590,"completion_tokens_details":{"reasoning_tokens":1976}},"tokens_in":590,"tokens_out":2050,"duration_ms":15275,"temperature":1.0,"reasoning_tokens":1976,"cache_read_input_tokens":384,"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"cache_creation_input_tokens":0},"created_at":"2026-08-06T15:31:03.062475+00:00","model_set":{"reader":"deepseek-v4-flash"},"falsifier":"Run a controlled study with a larger sample, for example twelve designers, half using Miro and half using a tool with retractable panels and viewport locking, on an open-ended design task across several wall sizes; if designers show no consistent preference for tablet input, no reduction in fatigue, or no advantage for the guideline-compliant tool, the central claim would be contradicted.","supporting_citations":[{"cited_title":"Designing for and on wall-sized displays: a preliminary study with FIGMA,","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"The authors' prior conference study on Figma with wall-sized displays; this paper explicitly extends that preliminary usability work."},{"cited_title":"Challenges in designing interfaces for large displays: The practitioners’ point of view,","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Practitioners' challenges in designing interfaces for large displays; provides the observation that prototyping at original size is often impossible."},{"cited_title":"Interactive visualization on large high-resolution displays: A survey,","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Survey of interactive visualization on large high-resolution displays; defines wall-sized displays and catalogs the interaction modalities the studies rely on."},{"cited_title":"The challenges of designing for large interactive displays,","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"The authors' earlier enumeration of challenges for large interactive displays; frames the designer-support gap that motivates the 1:1 approach."},{"cited_title":"FIGMA design","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Figma, the desktop-optimized design tool tested in Study 1; its fixed menus and panel occlusion generate the issue list that drives the feature requirements."},{"cited_title":"Welcome to the innovation workspace","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Miro, the design tool selected and tested in Study 2; its context menus, position preservation, and tablet sync make it the most suitable of the 19 tools reviewed."},{"cited_title":"Establishing awareness through pointing gestures during collaborative decision-making in a wall-display environment,","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"The previously built wall-display UI that participants reproduced in both studies; fixes the task and lets observation focus on tool manipulation."},{"cited_title":"“Beating","cited_arxiv_id":null,"evidence_quote":"Pointing facilitation techniques used as the proposed remedy for moving a cursor across very large displays, feeding the design guidelines."}],"review_version":1}