Notifications Efficiency, Impact, and Interference in Second-Screen Scenarios

The growing use of second-screen devices stresses the importance of finding a balance between engagement, distraction, and disturbance of its users, while simultaneously watching television. In this framework, this article reports on a study designed to analyze the efficiency, impact, and interference of different notification strategies aiming to identify the best approach to be used when an alert is needed in second-screen scenarios. A prototype able to deliver synchronized information related with TV content, with intervals of 10, 30 and 60 s, followed by individual or combined notifications (e.g., audio, visual, and haptic—on the tablet and visual—on the TV) was developed. A laboratory adapted to replicate a living room was set up and a test that involved watching three segments of a 20-min clip while using the prototype was carried with 30 participants, under a cognitive walk-through protocol. Quantitative and qualitative results show that receiving notifications while watching TV is effective in alerting users about new information, despite its inherent cognitive disturbance for the TV viewing experience. It was also possible to highlight that in an HCI perspective, the most suitable strategy for integrating notifications (considering type and cadence) should be based on a combination of a visual notification (displayed only on the TV screen) along with a haptic notification (vibration on the tablet); spaced by an interval of at least 30 s

Towards a Video Consumer Leaning Spectrum: A Medium-Centric Approach

Purpose: As TV and digital video converge, there is a need to compare advertising effectiveness, advertising receptivity, and video consumption drivers in this new context. Considering the emerging viewing practices and underlying theories, this study examines the feasibility of the traditional notion of differentiating between lean-back (LB) and lean-forward (LF) media, and proposes a revised approach of addressing video consumption processes and associated advertising effectiveness implications. Methodology: An extensive, systematic literature review examines a total of 715 sources regarding current lean-back/lean-forward media research and alternative approaches as by (1) basic terminologies, (2) limitations of lean-back/lean-forward situations, (3) advertising effectiveness implications, (4) video-specific approaches. Findings/Contribution: Key differences between lean-back and lean-forward video consumption are presented. A conceptual integration of video ad receptivity/effectiveness drivers is proposed to guide future media and marketing research and practice. Video consumption today is no longer lean-back or lean-forward, but a “leaning spectrum” with two dimensions: leaning direction and leaning degree. Designing video content today requires focusing on consumption drivers and platform synergies for owning the “leaning spectrum”

La televisión necesita una llamada digital: Cómo el multi-pantalla fomenta la participación, la interacción social y la inmersión. Un estudio exploratorio en Portugal

La proliferación de las tecnologías digitales, junto con el aumento de las tasas de adopción de internet y dispositivos móviles, están reconfigurando el panorama mediático contemporáneo y fomentando nuevas prácticas de uso. La televisión está pasando por un proceso de remediación o hibridación, ya que el contenido se está convirtiendo en transmedia y los espectadores en multiplataforma. Este artículo trata del multi-pantalla, es decir, el uso de dispositivos con pantalla mientras se ve la televisión. El objetivo de esta investigación es la identificación de las prácticas multi-pantalla más comunes y las motivaciones, usos y gratificaciones detrás de esas conductas. Nuestro enfoque teórico articula el concepto de multi-pantalla, y la descripción de las prácticas multi-pantalla más comunes, con una visión general de la investigación sobre las comunicaciones móviles y las motivaciones para su adopción y uso. Nuestro trabajo empírico consiste en focus groups con usuarios multi-pantalla, donde fueron explorados sus objetivos, necesidades, preferencias y expectativas asociados a estas prácticas. Nuestros resultados identifican dos tipos principales de motivaciones para el multi-pantalla: utilitaria (asociado con hacer un mejor uso del tiempo y ser más eficaces en el cumplimiento de tareas) y afectiva (relacionado con una necesidad constante e inevitable de estar puesto al día con lo que está pasando en el mundo y estar conectado a la red de estrechas relaciones de uno). Los dispositivos móviles añaden un estrato digital a la televisión, y esto se caracteriza, más a menudo, por no tener relación con el contenido de la televisión.The proliferation of digital technologies, along with increasing rates of adoption of the internet and mobile devices, are reconfiguring the contemporary media landscape and fostering new usage practices. The television is undergoing a remediation or hybridization process, as content becomes transmedia and viewers become multiplatform. This paper focuses on multi-screening, i.e. the use of screened devices during television viewing. The aim of this research is identifying the most common multiscreening practices and the motivations, uses and gratifications behind those behaviors. Our theoretical framework articulates a discussion of the concept of multi-screening itself, along with a description of the most common multiscreening practices, with an overview of previous research in the Mobile Communication subfield on the motivations for mobile phone adoption and use. Our empirical work consists of focus group discussions with multi-screeners, exploring the goals, needs, preferences and expectations associated to these practices. Our results identify two main types of motivations for multi-screening: utilitarian (associated with making a better use of time and being more effective in accomplishing tasks) and affective (related to a constant and pressing need of being up-to-date with what is going on in the world and being connected to one’s network of close relationships). Mobile devices add a digital layer to television viewing, and this layer is more often unrelated to television content than related

"TV no longer commands our full attention": Effects of second-screen viewing and task relevance on cognitive load and learning from news

Second-screen viewing - the use of smartphones, tablets, and laptops while watching television - has increased dramatically in the last few years. Using multiple resource theory and threaded cognition theory, this study investigated the effects of second-screen viewing on cognitive load, factual recall and comprehension of news. Second, we examined the effects of relevant (i.e., looking up information related to the news story) and irrelevant (i.e., looking up information unrelated to the story) second-screen viewing on learning from news. Results from an experiment (N = 85) showed that second-screen viewing led to lower factual recall and comprehension of news content than single-screen viewing. These effects were mediated by cognitive load: second-screen viewing led to a higher cognitive load than single-screen viewing, with higher cognitive load, in turn, leading towards lower factual recall and comprehension of news content. Contrary to our expectations, we found no statistically significant differences between effects of relevant and irrelevant second-screen viewing. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.publisher: Elsevier articletitle: “TV no longer commands our full attention”: Effects of second-screen viewing and task relevance on cognitive load and learning from news journaltitle: Computers in Human Behavior articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.021 content_type: article copyright: Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.status: publishe

Dual screening, public service broadcasting, and political participation in eight Western democracies

We investigate the relationship between political dual screening—that is, watching political contents on television while reading and commenting on them on social media—and political participation across eight Western democracies: Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Spain, United Kingdom, and United States. Based on custom built online surveys conducted between 2015 and 2016 on samples representative of the adult population with internet access in each country, we test hypotheses on both intra-country and cross-country direct and differential effects of political dual screening on various forms of offline and online political participation. We find a positive correlation between the frequency with which citizens dual screen political content and their overall levels of participation. Such correlation is stronger among respondents with lower levels of interest in politics, suggesting that dual screening has the potential to bridge participatory gaps between citizens who are more and less politically involved. The relationship between dual screening and participation is also significantly stronger in countries whose media systems feature the strongest Public Service Broadcasters. Our findings suggest that dual screening makes a positive contribution to democratic citizenship and political equality, and that it can also help public service media fulfill some of their key functions

Presentation adaptation for multimodal interface systems: Three essays on the effectiveness of user-centric content and modality adaptation

The use of devices is becoming increasingly ubiquitous and the contexts of their users more and more dynamic. This often leads to situations where one communication channel is rather impractical. Text-based communication is particularly inconvenient when the hands are already occupied with another task. Audio messages induce privacy risks and may disturb other people if used in public spaces. Multimodal interfaces thus offer users the flexibility to choose between multiple interaction modalities. While the choice of a suitable input modality lies in the hands of the users, they may also require output in a different modality depending on their situation. To adapt the output of a system to a particular context, rules are needed that specify how information should be presented given the users’ situation and state. Therefore, this thesis tests three adaptation rules that – based on observations from cognitive science – have the potential to improve the interaction with an application by adapting the presented content or its modality. Following modality alignment, the output (audio versus visual) of a smart home display is matched with the user’s input (spoken versus manual) to the system. Experimental evaluations reveal that preferences for an input modality are initially too unstable to infer a clear preference for either interaction modality. Thus, the data shows no clear relation between the users’ modality choice for the first interaction and their attitude towards output in different modalities. To apply multimodal redundancy, information is displayed in multiple modalities. An application of the rule in a video conference reveals that captions can significantly reduce confusion. However, the effect is limited to confusion resulting from language barriers, whereas contradictory auditory reports leave the participants in a state of confusion independent of whether captions are available or not. We therefore suggest to activate captions only when the facial expression of a user – captured by action units, expressions of positive or negative affect, and a reduced blink rate – implies that the captions effectively improve comprehension. Content filtering in movies puts the character into the spotlight that – according to the distribution of their gaze to elements in the previous scene – the users prefer. If preferences are predicted with machine learning classifiers, this has the potential to significantly improve the user’ involvement compared to scenes of elements that the user does not prefer. Focused attention is additionally higher compared to scenes in which multiple characters take a lead role