  Sharing a physical environment, such as that of a wall-display, facilitates
gaining awareness of others' actions and intentions, thereby bringing benefits
for collaboration. Previous studies have provided first insights on awareness
in the context of tabletops or smaller vertical displays. This paper seeks to
advance the current understanding on how users share awareness information in
wall-display environments and focusses on mid-air pointing gestures as a
foundational part of communication. We present a scenario dealing with the
organization of medical supply chains in crisis situations, and report on the
results of a user study with 24 users, split into 6 groups of 4, performing
several tasks. We investigate pointing gestures and identify three subtypes
used as awareness cues during face-to-face collaboration: narrative pointing,
loose pointing, and sharp pointing. Our observations show that reliance on
gesture subtypes varies across participants and groups, and that sometimes
vague pointing is sufficient to support verbal negotiations.
