Large display environments (LDEs) are interactive physical workspaces featuring one or more static large displays as well as rich interaction capabilities, and are meant to visualize and manipulate very large datasets. Research about mid-air interactions in such environments has emerged over the past decade, and a number of interaction techniques are now available for most elementary tasks such as pointing, navigating and command selection. However these techniques are often designed and evaluated separately on specific platforms and for specific use-cases or operationalizations, which makes it hard to choose, compare and combine them.In this dissertation I propose a framework and a set of guidelines for analyzing and combining the input and output channels available in LDEs. I analyze the characteristics of LDEs in terms of (1) visual output and how it affects usability and collaboration and (2) input channels and how to combine them in rich sets of mid-air interaction techniques. These analyses lead to four design requirements intended to ensure that a set of interaction techniques can be used (i) at a distance, (ii) together with other interaction techniques and (iii) when collaborating with other users. In accordance with these requirements, I designed and evaluated a set of mid-air interaction techniques for panning and zooming, for invoking commands while pointing and for performing difficult pointing tasks with limited input requirements. For the latter I also developed two methods, one for calibrating high-precision techniques with two levels of precision and one for tuning velocity-based transfer functions. Finally, I introduce two higher-level design considerations for combining interaction techniques in input-constrained environments. Designers should take into account (1) the trade-off between minimizing limb usage and performing actions in parallel that affects overall performance, and (2) the decision and adaptation costs incurred by changing the resolution function of a pointing technique during a pointing task.

Les environnements à grands écrans (Large Display Environments, LDE) sont des espaces de travail interactifs contenant un ou plusieurs grands écrans fixes et divers dispositifs d'entrée ayant pour but de permettre la visualisation et la manipulation de très grands jeux de données. La recherche s'est de plus en plus intéressée à ces environnements durant ces dix dernières années, et il existe d'ores-et-déjà un certain nombre de techniques d'interaction correspondant à la plupart des tâches élémentaires comme le pointage, la navigation et la sélection de commandes. Cependant, ces techniques sont souvent conçues et évaluées séparément, dans des environnements et des cas d'utilisations spécifiques. Il est donc difficile de les comparer et de les combiner.Dans ce manuscrit, je propose un ensemble de guides pour l'analyse et la combinaison des canaux d'entrée et de sortie disponibles dans les LDEs. Je présente d'abord une étude de leurs caractéristiques selon deux axes: (1) le retour visuel, et la manière dont il affecte l'utilisabilité des techniques d'interaction et la collaboration co-localisée, et (2) les canaux d'entrée, et comment les combiner en d'efficaces ensembles de techniques d'interaction. Grâce à ces analyses, j'ai développé quatre pré-requis de conception destinés à assurer que des techniques d'interaction peuvent être utilisées (i) à distance, (ii) en même temps que d'autres techniques et (iii) avec d'autres utilisateurs. Suivant ces pré-requis, j'ai conçu et évalué un ensemble de techniques de navigation, d'invocation de commandes tout en pointant, et de pointage haute-précision avec des moyens d'entrée limités. J'ai également développé deux méthodes de calibration de techniques de pointage, l'une spécifique aux techniques ayant deux niveaux de précision et l'autre adaptée aux fonctions d'accélération. En conclusion, j'introduis deux considérations de plus haut niveau sur la combinaison de techniques d'interaction dans des environnements aux canaux d'entrée limités : (1) il existe un compromis entre le fait de minimiser l'utilisation des membres de l'utilisateur et celui d'effectuer des actions en parallèle qui affecte les performances de l'ensemble ; (2) changer la fonction de transfert d'une technique de pointage durant son utilisation peut avoir un effet négatif sur les performances. / Large display environments (LDEs) are interactive physical workspaces featuring one or more static large displays as well as rich interaction capabilities, and are meant to visualize and manipulate very large datasets. Research about mid-air interactions in such environments has emerged over the past decade, and a number of interaction techniques are now available for most elementary tasks such as pointing, navigating and command selection. However these techniques are often designed and evaluated separately on specific platforms and for specific use-cases or operationalizations, which makes it hard to choose, compare and combine them.In this dissertation I propose a framework and a set of guidelines for analyzing and combining the input and output channels available in LDEs. I analyze the characteristics of LDEs in terms of (1) visual output and how it affects usability and collaboration and (2) input channels and how to combine them in rich sets of mid-air interaction techniques. These analyses lead to four design requirements intended to ensure that a set of interaction techniques can be used (i) at a distance, (ii) together with other interaction techniques and (iii) when collaborating with other users. In accordance with these requirements, I designed and evaluated a set of mid-air interaction techniques for panning and zooming, for invoking commands while pointing and for performing difficult pointing tasks with limited input requirements. For the latter I also developed two methods, one for calibrating high-precision techniques with two levels of precision and one for tuning velocity-based transfer functions. Finally, I introduce two higher-level design considerations for combining interaction techniques in input-constrained environments. Designers should take into account (1) the trade-off between minimizing limb usage and performing actions in parallel that affects overall performance, and (2) the decision and adaptation costs incurred by changing the resolution function of a pointing technique during a pointing task.