Physical exertion has been extensively investigated in recent research on gestural interaction. It has been shown that users perceive gestures as more convenient if they are easier to perform in terms of effort.

Our research question is how screen size affects user perception about the effort of a gesture. Different gestures have been looked at. In a user study 45 subjects interacted with a game prototype with three different gesture pairs in front of two different screen sizes.

The results show that screen size does not affect user perception of effort. The users felt small gestures to be less effortful independent of screen size. Furthermore, small gestures were performed faster and more precisely. In addition, there is a difference between horizontal and vertical movements concerning effort. Overall small gestures feel more appropriate for a small screen and big gestures more appropriate for a big screen which allows a convenient interaction in front of the appropriate screen size.

Comparing Efficiency Across Screen Sizes (Bachelor-Thesis Corinna List)

One of the most used input modalities is touch. Be it single- or multitouch, in smartphones, laptops or even on big screens - touch is used everywhere, in various types and sizes.

This study is focused on the influence of display size on the performance of translation tasks. 20 participants were asked to perform a simple translation task on three screens with different display sizes. The results show that, due to the increased movement time, larger screens are less performant at higher ID (index of difficulty) values than medium-sized screens.

The error rate for smaller screens is higher than for other display sizes. Therefore, tasks on these screens are perceived as being more difficult. The smaller a screen, the bigger the overshoot with movements downwards as well as to the left.
It was shown that medium-sized screens are perceived as being less exhausting than small or big screens.