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Do Interrupted Users Work Faster or Slower? The Micro-analysis of Computerized Text Editing Task

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Ivan Burmistrov at interUX
Ivan Burmistrov
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Anna Leonova
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Anna Leonova
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Previous research on the effects of interruptions on the speed of performing the computerized tasks gave rather non-homogeneous results: many authors insist that interrupted users always complete tasks slower than when performing the same tasks without interruption, but others showed that interrupting a user during some categories of tasks caused that user to complete the tasks faster. The micro-analysis of concrete text editing operations conducted in our experimental study revealed the difference between the effects of interruptions on cognitively simple and cognitively complex tasks. While the performance of simple tasks was not influenced by interruptions, interruptions slowered complex task performance. The task re-orientation after the interruption was found to be responsible for performance degradation.
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Do
Interrupted Users Work Faster
or
Slower?
The
Micro-analysis
of
Computerized Text Editing Task
Ivan
Burmistrov
Anna
Leonova
Moscow
State University
Department
of
Psychology
8-5
Mokhovaya
Ul.
Moscow
103009
Russia
ivan@psychology.ru, aleon@chair.cogsci.msu.su
Abstract
Previous
research
on the
effects
of
interruptions
on the
speed
of
performing
the
computerized
tasks
gave rather non-homogeneous results: many authors insist that interrupted users always
complete
tasks slower than when performing
the
same tasks without interruption,
but
others
showed
that interrupting
a
user during some categories
of
tasks caused that user
to
complete
the
tasks
faster.
The
micro-analysis
of
concrete text editing operations conducted
in our
experimental
study
revealed
the
difference between
the
effects
of
interruptions
on
cognitively simple
and
cognitively
complex
tasks.
While
the
performance
of
simple
tasks
was not
influenced
by
interruptions,
interruptions slowered complex task performance.
The
task re-orientation
after
the
interruption
was
found
to be
responsible
for
performance degradation.
1
Introduction
Research
on the
effects
of
interruptions
on the
computerized work
has
extensively proliferated
in
the
last
five
years (see McFarlane
&
Latorella (2002)
for
detailed review
of the
research
findings
and the
existing user
interface
design literature relative
to
coordinating human interruption).
In
many cases,
this
research gave rather non-homogeneous results.
For
example, Bailey,
Konstan
&
Carlis (2000,
2001)
and
Cutrell, Czerwinski
&
Horvitz (2000, 2001) insist that interrupted users
always
complete tasks slower than when performing
the
same tasks without interruption.
However,
experiments
of
Speier, Valacich
&
Vessey (1997, 1999)
and
Zijlstra, Roe, Leonova
&
Krediet
(1999) showed that interrupting
a
user during some types
of
tasks
(e.g.,
the
document-
editing
tasks
and
simple decision-making tasks) caused that user
to
complete
the
tasks
faster.
Clearly,
the
conclusions derived
from
these independent studies
are
inconsistent
and
further
investigation
into
the
effects
of
interruptions
on a
user's
task performance
is
required.
It
must
be
noted, that
in
abovementioned experiments, researchers used
"macro"
measures
of
task
performance
such
as
"time
on
task"
(TOT)
and did not
conduct
a
micro-analysis
of
concrete
operations,
of
which
the the
whole task consists.
The
main idea
of our
experiment
was to
conduct
this
micro-analysis
of
concrete operations.
621
2
Experiment
2.1
Design
In
our
experiment,
30
subjects performed
a
computer-assisted text editing tasks.
The
experimental
task
was to
make corrections
in a
computer
file,
based
on a
hard-copy version
of a
text containing
hand-written corrections.
No a
priori time limits
for
completing
the
tasks were given,
and
subjects
could work
at
their
own
pace. Experimental sessions took approximately
40
minutes
each,
depending
on the
individual
speed.
During
the
experimental sessions, subject's work activity
was
disturbed
by a
number
of
interruptions
-
phone calls
-
when
the
subject
was
told
to
perform another task, referred
to as
secondary task. Interruptions affected three types
of
concrete editing operations:
(a)
typing
in new
text
-
new,
(b)
regular editing (making simple corrections)
-
regular,
(c)
moving
a
block
of
text
to
a
new
location
-
move.
The
independent variable
was the
presence/absence
of
interruption.
The
dependent variable
was
editing latency
for
concrete operations.
2.2
Apparatus
and
Materials
The
experiment took place
in a
simulated
office
environment.
The 40
m2
laboratory
was
divided
into
two
rooms
by a
wall.
One
room
has
been equipped
as an
office
workplace
(with
furniture,
personal computer, intercom telephone), while
the
other
was
used
as a
control room.
At the
office
location
a
tripod video camera
was
placed
to
monitor
the
subject.
The
video signals
from
the
camera
and
from
computer screen were routed
to a
video mixer
in the
adjacent control room. From
this
room
the
experimenter controlled
the
experiment
and
watched
the
mixed video signal
(view
of
the
subject plus contents
of the
subject's computer screen)
via the
video monitor.
The
mixed video
signal supplied with 0.01 second precision timecode
was
also recorded
on a VCR for
further
analysis.
2.3
Moments
Measured
and
Time
Intervals
Calculated
The
general scheme
of
moments measured
in the
experiment
and
time intervals calculated
for
data
analysis
is
presented
in
Figure
1.
Moments
measured:
•
Tstart
and
Tend:
start
and end of
operation;
•
tring:
moment
of
ringing
of the
phone;
•
picking
up the
phone
has
been considered
to be the
start
of the
secondary task
(t^);
• the
last visible operation
of the
secondary
task
has
been considered
to be the end of the
secondary task
(tend);
•
Tstop:
stop
of
performing
the
main
task,
i. e.
full
switch
to the
secondary
task;
•
resumption
of the
main task
(Tresumption):
return
of
subject's attention
to the
main task
after
finishing the
secondary
task;
•
point
of
continuation
(Tcontinuation):
first
action
in
continuation
of the
main task
after
interruption.
622
Figure
1:
Moments
measured
in the
experiment
and
time intervals calculated
for
data analysis
Time
intervals calculated:
•
operation time
(Toperation
=
Tend
-
Tstart):
time
spent
to
perform
the
operation
including
the
secondary task;
•
duration
of
interruption
(tjnterruption
=
tend
-
tstart):
time between picking
up the
phone
and
the
last visible operation
of the
secondary task;
•
returns
to
main task
(Treturns):
sum
time
of
returns
to the
main task while working
on the
secondary
task;
•
break-between
(Tbreak-between
=
Tresumption
-
tend):
time interval between
the
last visible
operation
of the
secondary task
and
starting
the
resumption
of the
main task;
•
orientation
(Torientation
=
Tcontinuation
-
Tresump,ion):
time between starting
the
resumption
of
the
main task
and the first
action
in
continuation
of the
main task;
•
changeover
(Tchangeover
=
Tbreak.between
+
Torientation):
a sum of
break-between
and
orientation;
623
• net
operation
time
(Tnet
=
Toperation
-
tinterruptjon
+
Treturns):
operation
time
minus
duration
of
interruption
plus
returns
to the
main
task;
• net
operation
time
minus
time
of
orientation
(Qnet
=
Tnct
-
Torientation)-
3
Results
3.1
Effects
of
Presence
of
Interruptions
on
Concrete Operation
Performance
The
ANOVA revealed significant main
effect
of the
presence
of
interruption
on the net
operation
time
(Tnet)
for
operation
move,
F(l,93)
=
9.91,
p -
0.0022,
but
showed
no
significant
effect
of the
presence
of
interruption
for
operations
new
and
regular.
After
obtaining this result,
we
made
an
attempt
to
answer
the
question
why net
operation time
increases when operation
is
interrupted.
Our
working hypothesis
was
that this increase could
be
explained
by the
time
of
re-orientation
in the
main task
after
completing
the
secondary task
(Torientation)-
In
order
to
confirm this hypothesis,
we
conducted
the
same analysis
for the net
operation time minus time
of
orientation
(Qnet).
Difference between experimental conditions
Yes
Interruption
and No
Interruption became nonsignificant. This
finding
suggests that namely
the
orientation interval
(Torien,atjon)
is
mainly responsible
for
increase
in the net
operation time
(Tne,)
for
interrupted operations.
3.2
Factors That Influence
the
Orientation
In
order
to
explore factors that
may
influence orientation interval
(Tonenlalion),
we
have analysed
its
dependence
on the
type
of
interrupted operation. Mean values
for
Torientation
for
operations
new,
regular,
and
move
were 5.4, 8.7,
and
12.8 seconds, respectively.
The
difference
was
significant
between operations
new and
regular,
/(38)
=
-2.15,
p =
0.038,
and
between operations
new and
move,
t(55)
=
-3.04,/>
=
0.004.
4
Discussion
Statistical analyses revealed
the
significant
effects
of
presence/absence
of
interruptions
on the
editing latencies
for
cognitively
complex editing operations (such
as
moving
a
paragraph
to a new
location), while
the
performance
for
cognitively simple editing actions
(e. g.
typing
in a new
paragraph) were
not
affected
by
interruptions.
A
probable explanation
to
this
fact
may be
that
operation
new is the
simplest operation
in
text editing.
It
involve neither search
and
location
of
some point
in the
text
(as for
operation regular)
nor
include complex sequences
of
actions
and
additional mental load caused
by the
necessity
to
mentally track
the
contents
of the
clipboard
(as
for
operation move). Operation move
is an
example
of a
"functional
thread",
i. e. a
series
of
commands
or
actions,
and
effects
of
interruptions
on
this type
of
operations were more disruptive.
These
results
are
consistent with findings
of
Speier, Valacich
&
Vessey
(1997,
1999), where
interruptions were found
to
facilitate performance
on
simple tasks,
while
inhibiting
performance
on
more complex
tasks,
and
also results
of
Bailey,
Konstan
&
Carlis (2000, 2001), where
interruptions slowered
all
categories
of
tasks
except
registration
task,
because
the
latter required
the
lowest memory load
at the
point
of
interruption
and
less
effort
to
resume
the
main task
after
interruption.
624
Our
results also suggest that
the
task re-orientation
after
the
interruption
is
mainly responsible
for
increase
in net
operation time
(Tnet)
for
interrupted operations.
5
Acknowledgements
This
work
has
been supported
by the
Russian Foundation
for
Basic Research grant
#
02-06-80189.
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625
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  • Mar 2002
At first glance it seems absurd that busy people doing important jobs should want their computers to interrupt them. Interruptions are disruptive and people need to concentrate to make good decisions. However, successful job perfor- mance also frequently depends on people's abilities to (a) constantly monitor their dynamically changing information environments, (b) collaborate and communi- cate with other people in the system, and (c) supervise background autonomous services. These critical abilities can require people to simultaneously query a large set of information sources, continuously monitor for important events, and re- spond to and communicate with other human operators. Automated monitoring
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Effects of Instant Messaging Interruptions on Computing Tasks
Article
Full-text available
  • Apr 2004
This paper describes a study that probes the cost of interrupting users with instant messages during different "phases" of a computing task. We found that interrupting users during the "evaluation phase" of the task resulted in significantly longer completion times than interruptions in other phases. We also found that interruptions that were irrelevant to the task resulted in longer times to process the message and longer task resumption times than relevant messages. These initial results have implications for the principled design of intelligent interrupters and instant messages.
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Temporal Factors in Mental Work: Effects of Interrupted Activities
Article
Full-text available
  • Jun 1999
Although interruptions are daily occurring events for most working people, little research has been done on the impacts of interruptions on workers and their performance. This study examines the effects of interruptions on task performance and its regulation, as well as on workers' psychological and psychophysiological state. Two parallel experiments were carried out in the Netherlands and in Russia, using a common conceptual framework and overlapping designs. Employees with relevant work experience carried out realistic text editing tasks in a simulated office environment, while the frequency and complexity of interruptions were experimentally manipulated. It was hypothesized that interruptions: (i) would cause a deterioration of performance; (ii) evoke strategies to partially compensate for this deterioration; (iii) affect subjects' emotions and well‐being negatively; and (iv) raise the level of effort and activation. It was also hypothesized that greater frequency and complexity of interruptions would enhance the expected effects. The hypotheses are only partially confirmed. The results show that, contrary to what was expected, interruptions cause people to perform the main task faster while maintaining the level of quality. Participants develop strategies enabling them to deal effectively with the interruptions, while actually over‐compensating the potential performance decline. Interruptions do have a negative impact on emotion and well‐being, and lead to an increase of effort expenditure, although not to an increase in activation. Thus the improved performance is achieved at the expense of higher psychological costs. Greater complexity evoked more favourable responses among the Dutch participants and more unfavourable ones among the Russian participants. These differences are interpreted in terms of the participants' professional background. The research demonstrates that the effects of interruptions reach beyond the execution of additional tasks and the change of work strategies. Interruptions appear to have an after‐effect, influencing the workers' subsequent readiness to perform. Detailed analysis of the activity in the interruption interval, focusing on cognitive processes during episodes of ‘change‐over’ and ‘resumption’ support this interpretation.
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The Effects of Interruptions on Task Performance, Annoyance, and Anxiety in the User Interface
Article
  • Apr 2004
When an automating application needs a user's input or has feedback or other information for that user, it typically engages the user immediately, interrupting the user's current task. To empirically validate why unnecessarily interrupting a user's task should be avoided, we designed an experiment measuring the effects of an interruption on a user's task performance, annoyance, and anxiety. Fifty subjects participated in the experiment. The results demonstrate that an interruption has a disruptive effect on both a user's task performance and emotional state, and that the degree of disruption depends on the user's mental load at the point of interruption. We discuss the implications of these results in terms of building a system to better coordinate interactions between the user and applications competing for that user's attention.
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The Influence of Task Interruption on Individual Decision Making: An Information Overload Perspective
Article
  • Mar 1999
  • DECISION SCI
Interruptions are a common aspect of the work environment of most organizations. Yet little is known about how intemptions and their characteristics, such as frequency of occurrence, influence decision-making performance of individuals. Consequently, this paper reports the results of two experiments investigating the influence of interruptions on individual decision making. Interruptions were found to improve decision-making performance on simple tasks and to lower performance on complex tasks. For complex tasks, the frequency of interruptions and the dissimilarity of content between the pri-mary and interruption tasks was found to exacerbate this effect. The implications of these results for future research and practice are discussed.
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Measuring the effects of interruptions on task performance in the user interface
Conference Paper
  • Feb 2000
As users continue offloading more control and responsibility to the computer, coordinating the asynchronous interactions between the user and computer is becoming increasingly important. Without proper coordination, an application attempting to gain the user's attention risks interrupting the user in the midst of performing another task. To justify why an application should avoid interrupting the user whenever possible, we designed an experiment measuring the disruptive effect of an interruption on a user's task performance. The experiment utilized six Web-based task categories and two categories of interruption tasks. The results of the experiment demonstrate that: (i) a user performs slower on an interrupted task than a non-interrupted task, (ii) the disruptive effect of an interruption differs as a function of the task category, and (iii) different interruption tasks cause similar disruptive effects on task performance. These results empirically validate the need to better coordinate user interactions among applications that are competing for the user's attention
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Notification, Disruption, and Memory: Effects of Messaging Interruptions on Memory and Performance
Article
  • Dec 2000
: We describe a study on the influence of instant messaging (IM) on ongoing computing tasks. The study both replicates and extends earlier work on the cost of sending notifications at different times and the sensitivity of different tasks to interruption. We investigate alternative hypotheses about the nature of disruption for a list evaluation task, an activity identified as being particularly costly to interrupt. Our findings once again show the generally disruptive effects of IM, especially during fast, stimulus-driven search tasks. In addition, we show that interruptions coming early during a search task are more likely to result in the user forgetting the primary task goal than interruptions that arrive later on. These findings have implications for the design of user interfaces and notification policies that minimize the disruptiveness of notifications. Keywords: Notifications, user study, interruptions, information overload, divided attention 1 Introduction With the adv...
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