The Interaction of Cursor Warping and View Manipulation in Multi-Display XR Environments

Chen, Yuzheng and Wang, Haopeng and Lee, Hock Siang and Weidner, Florian and Hu, Jinghui and Gellersen, Hans (2026) The Interaction of Cursor Warping and View Manipulation in Multi-Display XR Environments. In: CHI '26 : Proceedings of the 2026 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, ESP, pp. 1-17. ISBN 9798400722783

Abstract

Extended Reality (XR) headsets enable large, reconfigurable multi-display workspaces and support view manipulation, allowing the workspace to reposition itself around the user. Cursor warping similarly reduces traversal distance and pointer search by reinitialising the cursor at defined locations. Yet when both mechanisms operate together, the spatial relationship between user, displays, and cursor becomes dynamic, and it remains unclear how cursor repositioning behaves when the workspace itself moves. In a study (N=20) of five cursor-warping strategies with two view manipulations, we show that the benefits of both do not automatically combine: workspace motion can disrupt spatial consistency and alter both performance and movement costs. We show that continuous cursor movement in world space is limited compared to alternative warping techniques, and cursor behaviour and view control are tightly coupled. Hence, cursor initialisation and view manipulation must be co-designed to support efficient and comfortable interaction in XR multi-display environments.