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It is widely believed that overlapping windows are preferable to tiled (non-overlapping) ones, but there is very little research to support that belief. An analysis of the basic characteristics of windowing regimes predicts that there are, in fact, situations where overlapping windows are inferior to tiled. An experiment to test this prediction verified that there are indeed tasks and users for which tiled windows yield faster performance. This result suggests a need for closer study of the principles underlying windowing regimes, so that designers have a better understanding of the tradeoffs involved in using them.
Bly et al. (1986) studied this question.