Effects of Supervisors\u27 Technology-Mediated Interruption Behavior on Their Work-Life Balance

Although technology-mediated interruption has received substantial research attention over the past several years, most of the existing research investigates the effects of interruptions only from the perspective of the interrupted person. In this paper, we aim to answer the recent calls for research from the interrupters’ perspective and develop a research model based upon Conservation of Resources (COR) theory and Action Regulation Theory (ART) to explore the effects of supervisors’ technology-mediated interruption behavior. In this model, we propose that supervisors’ technology-mediated interruption behavior leads to information overload and sense of control, which impact work/non-work exhaustion and work/non-work performance, and eventually affect the supervisors’ perception of work-life balance. We also propose that personal characteristics including supervisors’ sense of power and computer experience will moderate the relationships between supervisors’ technology-mediated interruption behavior and information overload/sense of control. We plan to test the proposed research model using experience sampling methodology (ESM)

ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT AND MULTITASKING BEHAVIORS: A MIXED-METHOD STUDY

This paper investigates how individual perceptions and attitudes about an organization influence multitasking behaviors in the workplace. While we know that individuals’ behaviors are influenced by the characteristics of their organizations (e.g., ICTs, physical layout), we still do not know much about how the way individuals interpret their organization influences their multitasking behaviors. We first hypothesize that individual perceptions of organizational preferences for multitasking (i.e. organizational polychronicity) have impacts on actually enacted multitasking behaviors. We also hypothesize that the attachment to the organization (i.e. organizational identification) moderates the above relationship. We conducted a mixed method study in two knowledge intensive organizations and collected data through a survey, diaries, and semi-structured interviews. Our findings support the first hypothesis but not the moderating role of organizational identification. However, this latter seems to be directly related on how much a person is willing to work on different activities, but not on how much she interrupts others or accepts being interrupted. Further, our study suggests that not only the organizational context should be investigated in the study of multitasking behaviors, but also the larger work context, including the individuals’ professional communities

ICT-Based Communication Events as Triggers of Stress: A Mixed Methods Study

ICT-based communication brings more flexibility to our lives but likewise can be a source of stress. In this paper, we argue that stress due to ICT-based communication is triggered not only by stable material properties of ICTs but also by characteristics of the usage situation itself. To explore the stress-inducing characteristics of ICT-based communication events, we opt for a developmental mixed methods approach. A qualitative study with 59 participants is used to identify ICT-based communication event stressors. Based on the transactional theory of stress and coping and the qualitative data, we develop hypotheses on how these stressors affect momentary stress levels and cumulate over the course of a day to affect end-of-day stress levels. An ongoing quantitative experience sampling study will be used to test the proposed hypotheses. By adopting an event-based perspective, this paper could help to understand variations of stress due to ICT-based communication across different events

Kind mobile notifications for healthcare professionals

[EN] The inclusion of the Internet of Things in healthcare is producing numerous automatic notifications for health professionals. These notifications must be delivered in the right moment and in the right way to be appropriately attended, and at the same time, ensuring no important task is interrupted. In this work, we have applied a human-centred design method to deal with this issue. By collaborating with health professionals in Belgium, we have designed and validated DELICATE, a conceptual framework that categorizes the different attention needs for each notification, and links them with the delivery mechanisms that are more appropriate for each particular context. As an aid for designers, we also define methodological guidelines to clearly determine how DELICATE can be used to develop a notification system. Finally, as a proof-of-concept validation of the framework, we have implemented it in an Android application and tested it using real scenarios. This validation has shown that DELICATE can be used to design a notification system that delivers kind healthcare notifications.The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: Pedro Valderas's work has been developed with the financial support of the Spanish State Research Agency under the project TIN2017-84094-R and co-financed with ERDF. Estefania Serral and Jan Derboven's work has been supported by IMEC funding.Serral, E.; Valderas, P.; Derboven, J. (2020). Kind mobile notifications for healthcare professionals. Health Informatics Journal. 26(3):1516-1537. https://doi.org/10.1177/1460458219884184S15161537263Sasangohar, F., Donmez, B., Trbovich, P., & Easty, A. C. (2012). Not All Interruptions are Created Equal: Positive Interruptions in Healthcare. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting, 56(1), 824-828. doi:10.1177/1071181312561172McFarlane DC. Interruption of people in human-computer interaction: a general unifying definition of human interruption and taxonomy. Technical report, Office of Naval Research, Arlington VA, 31 December 1997.Ross, D. T., & Schoman, K. E. (1977). Structured Analysis for Requirements Definition. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, SE-3(1), 6-15. doi:10.1109/tse.1977.229899Gulliksen, J., Göransson, B., Boivie, I., Blomkvist, S., Persson, J., & Cajander, Å. (2003). Key principles for user-centred systems design. Behaviour & Information Technology, 22(6), 397-409. doi:10.1080/01449290310001624329Beyer, H. R., & Holtzblatt, K. (1995). Apprenticing with the customer. Communications of the ACM, 38(5), 45-52. doi:10.1145/203356.203365Christel, M. G., & Kang, K. C. (1992). Issues in Requirements Elicitation. doi:10.21236/ada25893

Reachable but not receptive: enhancing smartphone interruptibility prediction by modelling the extent of user engagement with notifications

Smartphone notifications frequently interrupt our daily lives, often at inopportune moments. We propose the decision-on-information-gain model, which extends the existing data collection convention to capture a range of interruptibility behaviour implicitly. Through a six-month in-the-wild study of 11,346 notifications, we find that this approach captures up to 125% more interruptibility cases. Secondly, we find different correlating contextual features for different behaviour using the approach and find that predictive models can be built with >80% precision for most users. However we note discrepancies in performance across labelling, training, and evaluation methods, creating design considerations for future systems

A Call for Engaging Context in HCI/MIS Research with Examples from the Area of Technology Interruptions

This paper contributes to the discussion on future directions of Human-Computer Interaction in Information Systems (HCI/MIS) research by explicating the role of task- and social context. We show that context has not been sufficiently engaged, and argue why it is important to pay more attention to it in theory and design of future HCI/MIS research. Drawing on examples from the core HCI area of technology interruptions, we formulate a set of general research questions and guidelines, which allow us to represent the context of multiple users in continuous collaboration with multiple tools while working on tasks that are intertwined within business processes. These guidelines will generate new insights for HCI/MIS research and allow us to develop research that captures the changing nature of the computing environment

The interplay between organizational polychronicity, multitasking behaviors and organizational identification: A mixed-methods study in knowledge intensive organizations

This paper investigates how individual perceptions and attitudes about an organization influence multitasking behaviors in the workplace. While we know that individuals are significantly influenced in their behaviors by the characteristics of their organizations (e.g. ICTs, organizational structure, physical layout), we still do not know much about how the way individuals interpret their organization influences their multitasking behaviors. Thus, we specifically hypothesize that the individual perception of the organizational preferences for multitasking (i.e. organizational polychronicity) engenders the actual multitasking behaviors that an individual enacts in the workplace. We also hypothesize that the attachment to the organization (i.e. organizational identification) moderates the above relationship. We conducted a mixed method study in two knowledge intensive organizations (an R&D unit and a university department) and collected data through a survey, diaries, and semi-structured interviews. Our findings support the first hypothesis but not the moderating role of organizational identification. However, this latter is directly related to how much a person is willing to work on multiple activities on a single day. Further, our study suggests that not only the organizational context should be investigated in the study of multitasking behaviors, but also the larger work context, including the individuals’ professional communities. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications as well as methodological reflections on mixing methods in the study of multitasking in organizations

Mobile Telephone Usage and Perception During Group Meetings

Abstract In the past few years smartphones have infiltrated the North American consumer markets. As the functionality and processor speed increase on these devices, they have started to be used in meetings in place of conventional mobile devices such as laptops. The aim of our research is to assess the perceptions and attitudes of mobile device user in organizational meetings. This paper presents results from an online survey conducted in the Southern Ontario region on smart mobile device perception and use during meetings. The major findings from 105 participants include that the majority of participants use a laptop during meetings regardless of who is present, and that laptops are most supported while iPhones are least supported. Participants also claim to have few difficulties with multitasking between tasks being carried out with the laptop and meeting tasks. A majority of participants would not accept or make phone calls or text messages during meetings unless there is an emergency

Push or delay? Decomposing Smartphone notification response behaviour

Smartphone notifications are often delivered without considering user interruptibility, potentially causing frustration for the recipient. Therefore research in this area has concerned finding contexts where interruptions are better received. The typical convention for monitoring interruption behaviour assumes binary actions, where a response is either completed or not at all. However, in reality a user may partially respond to an interruption, such as reacting to an audible alert or exploring which application caused it. Consequently we present a multi-step model of interruptibility that allows assessment of both partial and complete notification responses. Through a 6-month in-the-wild case study of 11,346 to-do list reminders from 93 users, we find support for reducing false-negative classification of interruptibility. Additionally, we find that different response behaviour is correlated with different contexts and that these behaviours are predictable with similar accuracy to complete responses