From overload to Overlord: reducing cognitive load in a post app-pocalyptic world

Mobile phones are ever-present and undoubtedly beneficial and useful devices, however the amount of information available can be at times overwhelming. Despite all of the benefits and conveniences they offer, the mobile computing environment has not entirely delivered on the promise of easy and simplified access to information. Approaching this problem space using a design science approach, this study addresses information overload of the mobile user as a result of duplicate application functionality and unnecessary screen transitions. Building on the myriad approaches to this problem, this research proposes a novel block-by-default GUI interface that performs automated data classification and aggregation in the background. Subscription functionality will hopefully evolve mobile computing into an attention-based revenue model where apps are rewarded for providing user utility as opposed to maximizing user time on app

Exploring How Cognitive Differences Impact Behavior and Performance in The Face of IT Interruptions

While IT interruptions have improved users’ performance in the workplace and everyday life by providing them with timely information, numerous studies have reported their negative effects on users’ performance and behavior. In an attempt to understand how users’ cognitive capabilities affect their performance and behavior in the face of IT interruptions, we propose that the three main executive capabilities of users’ brains (Inhibition, Updating, Shifting) predict distinct performance and behavioral outcomes. The Inhibition capability predicts the likelihood that users get distracted by irrelevant IT interruptions while it improves their performance on the main task. Updating and Shifting capabilities positively impact users’ performance on both the interrupting and the main tasks. An experiment is designed where users are observed while performing a primary task while being interrupted by two types of IT interruptions (relevant versus irrelevant). Potential contributions are discussed

The Importance of who and what in Interruption Management: Empirical Evidence from a Cell Phone Use Study

Interruption management in technology mediated communication is a key concern in collaborative work and social environments. Previous empirical and theoretical work in predicting interruptibility predominantly focuses on interruptee’s local context namely identifying cognitively and socially intruding contexts such as mental work load levels, activity, place of activity. They largely ignore the relational context namely “who” the interruption is from or “what” it is about. This paper addresses this issue by systematically investigating the use of the various contextual factors in interruption management practices of everyday cell phone use. Analysis of 1201 incoming calls from our experience sampling method study of cell phone use, shows that “who” is calling is used most of the time (87.4%) by individuals to make deliberate call handling decisions (N=834), in contrast to the interruptee’s current local social (34.9%) or cognitive (43%) contexts. We present implications of these findings for the design of interruption management tools for communication media

Interruptions at Work from the Point of View of IT Professionals

It is a major challenge nowadays to recruit and retain young professionals, especially IT professionals in Europe. Interior designers do their bests to create an office space that is more attractive for the young talents than the competitor’s workspace. Modern workstyle is based on communication and collaboration and therefore modern office spaces are designed to support continuous communication and teamwork. In this research, we raise the question how IT professionals fit in this workstyle. The focus of this research is on how IT professionals feel about the different types of communication channels, which are those they identify as hindering factors, and how much their opinion differs from other professionals. During the research, we collected information from questionnaires asking about work environment, communication channels used in the workplace, individual communication preferences, and factors considered as disruptions. The questionnaire was completed by 191 Hungarian office workers from which 63 respondents were IT professionals. The most important result of the research shows that while IT professionals consider personal inquiries useful, many of them are dissatisfied with organized meetings. This research also outlines that IT professionals have an outstanding ability to block out office noise and to focus on work. With the conclusions we make suggestions to the organizations how to improve the communicational environment in order to support work efficiency

Predicting the optimal time for interruption using pupillary data and classification

n the current study we present an air traffic control (ATC)task in which we measured pupil dilation to automaticallydetermine high and low workload periods. We manipulatedworking memory (WM) requirements across three conditions:a no WM condition, a passive WM condition in whichinformation was accumulated, and an active WM condition inwhich information had to be added to and removed from WM.Results showed that no WM resulted in the least dilation, butthat passive WM and active WM did not differ. Next, we usedthe pupil data to train a range of classifiers to differentiatebetween high and low workload periods with the ultimategoal to create an online task-independent interruptionmanagement system (IMS). The best predicting features werethe median and a second-order polynomial fit, going back 12seconds from the to-be-predicted moment. Using thesefeatures, our classifier was able to predict workload at highaccuracy (77%). We conclude that pupil dilation can be usedto create a reliable IMS

Can I Have Your Attention? Implications of the Research on Distractions and Multitasking for Reference Librarians

The media have identified the last decade as “the age of distraction.” People today find it harder to work on long, sustained tasks because distractions are eroding their attention span, fostering a culture of discontinuity. Fields as diverse as psychology, business, education, human-computer interaction, and communication studies have produced a wealth of studies on interruptions, distractions, and multitasking–research that has important implications for reference librarians. The nature of our jobs invites interruptions by the public, requires familiarity with the latest technology, stimulates curiosity about a broad range of subjects, and demands adeptness at multitasking–all factors which can atomize attention

What does it mean for an interruption to be relevant? An investigation of relevance as a memory effect

Interruptions cause slower, more error prone performance. Research suggests these disruptive effects are mitigated when interruptions are relevant to the task at hand. However, previous work has usually defined relevance as the degree of similarity between the content of interruptions and tasks. Using a lab-based experiment, we investigated the extent to which memory effects should be considered when assessing the relevance of an interruption. Participants performed a routine data-entry task during which they were interrupted. We found that when participants were interrupted between subtasks, reinforcement and interference effects meant that relevance had a significant effect on interruption disruptiveness. However, this effect was not observed when participants were interrupted within subtasks. These results suggest that interruption relevance is contingent on the contents of working memory during an interruption and that interruption management systems could be improved by modelling potential interfering and reinforcing effects of incoming interruptions