Joel E. Fischer
Chris Greenhalgh
Steve Benford
ABSTRACT
We investigate whether opportune moments to deliver notifications surface at the endings of episodes of mobile interaction (making voice calls or receiving SMS) based on the assumption that the endings collocate with naturally occurring breakpoint in the user's primary task. Testing this with a naturalistic experiment we find that interruptions (notifications) are attended to and dealt with significantly more quickly after a user has finished an episode of mobile interaction compared to a random baseline condition, supporting the potential utility of this notification strategy. We also find that the workload and situational appropriateness of the secondary interruption task significantly affect subsequent delay and completion rate of the tasks. In situ self-reports and interviews reveal complexities in the subjective experience of the interruption, which suggest that a more nuanced classification of the particular call or SMS and its relationship to the primary task(s) would be desirable.
- Adamczyk, P. D. and B. P. Bailey. If not now, when?: the effects of interruption at different moments within task execution. Proc. CHI 2004. ACM Press (2004). Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Avrahmi, D., Forgarty, J., Hudson, S. E. Biases in human estimation of interruptibility: effects and implications for practice. Proc. CHI 2007, ACM Press (2007). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Coragio, L. Deleterious effects of intermittent interruptions on the task performance of knowledge workers: a laboratory investigation. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Arizona (1990).Google Scholar
- Cutrell, E. B., Czerwinski, M., Horvitz E. Effects of instant messaging interruptions on computing tasks. Ext. abstracts CHI 2000, ACM Press (2000). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Cutrell, E. B., Czerwinski, M., Horvitz E. Notification, Disruption, and Memory: Effects of Messaging Interruptions on Memory and Performance. Proc. INTERACT 2001, IOS Press (2001).Google Scholar
- Csikszentmihalyi, M., Larson, R., Prescott, S. The ecology of adolescent activity and experience. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 6, 3 (1977), 281--294.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Czerwinski, M., Cutrell, E., Horvitz, E. Instant messaging: Effects of relevance and timing. People and computers XIV: Proc. HCI 2000, British Computer Society (2000).Google Scholar
- Dabbish, L. A. Coordinating Initiation and Response in Computer-Mediated Communication. PhD thesis. Pittsburgh, PA, Carnegie Mellon University, 2006. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dourish, P. Where the action is. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA, 2001.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Fischer, J. E., Yee, N., Bellotti, V., Good, N., Benford, S., Greenhalgh, C. Effects of content and time of delivery on receptivity to mobile interruptions. Proc. MobileHCI 2010, ACM Press (2010). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Garson, G. D. Linear Mixed Models. Available at: http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/multilevel.ht m. Last accessed on 18.09.2010.Google Scholar
- Gillie, T., Broadbent, D. What makes interruptions disruptive? A study of length, similarity, and complexity. Psych. Research 50 (1989), 243--250.Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ho, J., Intille, S. S. Using context-aware computing to reduce the burden of interruptions from mobile devices. Proc. CHI 2005, ACM Press (2005). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Horvitz, E. J., Apacible J. Learning and reasoning about interruption. Proc. ICMI 2003, ACM Press (2003). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Horvitz, E. J., Apacible, J., Subramani, M. Balancing awareness and interruption: investigation of notification deferral policies. Proc. UM 2005, Springer (2005). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Hudson, J. M., Christensen, J., Kellogg, W. A., Erickson, T. "I'd be overwhelmed, but it's just one more thing to do": availability and interruption in research management. Proc. CHI 2002, ACM Press (2002). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Iqbal, S. T., Adamczyk, P. D., Zheng, X. S., Bailey, B. P. Towards an Index of Opportunity: Understanding changes in mental workload during task execution. Proc. CHI 2005, ACM Press (2005). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Iqbal, S. T., Bailey, B. P. Understanding and developing models for detecting and differentiating breakpoints during interactive tasks. Proc. CHI 2007, ACM Press (2007). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Latorella, K. M. Effects of modality on interrupted flight deck performance: Implications for data link. NASA Langley Technical Report Server (1998). Google ScholarDigital Library
- McFarlane, D. C., Latorella, K. A. The Scope and Importance of Human Interruption in Human-Computer Interaction Design. HCI 17, 1 (2002), 1--62. Google ScholarDigital Library
- Miyata, Y., Norman, D. A. Psychological issues in support of multiple activites. In Norman. D. A. (ed.) User-Centered System Design. Hillsdale, NJ, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates (1986), 265--284.Google Scholar
- Monk, C. A., Boehm-Davis, D. A., Tafton, J. G. The attentional cost of interrupting task performance at various stages. Proc. HFES 2002, Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (2002).Google ScholarCross Ref
- O'Conaill, B., Frohlich, D. Timespace in the workplace: dealing with interruptions. Proc. CHI 1995, ACM Press (1995). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Oulasvirta, A., Tamminen, S., Roto, V., Kuorelahti, J. Interaction in 4--second bursts: the fragmented nature of attentional resources in mobile HCI. Proc. CHI 2005, ACM (2005). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Tolmie, P., Crabtree, A., Rodden, T., Benford, S. "Are you watching this film or what?" Interruptions and the juggling of cohorts. Proc. CSCW 2008, ACM Press (2008). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wang, H.-C., Fussell, S. R., Setlock, L. D. Cultural Difference and Adaptation of Communication Styles in Computer-Mediated Group Brainstorming. Proc. CHI 2009, ACM Press (2009). Google ScholarDigital Library
- Zacks, J. M., Braver, T. S., Sheridan, M. A., Donaldson, D. I., Snyder, A. Z., Ollinger, J. M., Buckner, R. L., Raichie, M. E. Human brain activity time-locked to perceptual event boundaries. Nature Neuroscience 4, 6 (2001), 651--655.Google ScholarCross Ref
Index Terms
- Investigating episodes of mobile phone activity as indicators of opportune moments to deliver notifications
Recommendations
An in-situ study of mobile phone notifications
MobileHCI '14: Proceedings of the 16th international conference on Human-computer interaction with mobile devices & servicesNotifications on mobile phones alert users about new messages, emails, social network updates, and other events. However, little is understood about the nature and effect of such notifications on the daily lives of mobile users. We report from a one-...
Effects of content and time of delivery on receptivity to mobile interruptions
MobileHCI '10: Proceedings of the 12th international conference on Human computer interaction with mobile devices and servicesIn this paper we investigate effects of the content of interruptions and of the time of interruption delivery on mobile phones. We review related work and report on a naturalistic quasi-experiment using experience-sampling that showed that the ...
Studying and tackling temporal challenges in mobile HCI
CHI EA '10: CHI '10 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIn this paper, I present the idea of receptivity as a broader concept than interruptibility alongside empirical studies of receptivity to interruptions on mobile devices in naturalistic settings, and a methodology based around experience-sampling in ...
Comments