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Ambient Notifications with Shape Changing Circuits in Peripheral Locations
Abstract
Calm technologies help us avoid distraction by embedding notifications in our surroundings with peripheral updates. However, users also lose out on the passive awareness that comes from more overt notifications. In our paper, we present an initial study setup on shape changing circuits as notifications. We compare near and far peripheral locations to determine the optimal location for these notifications by assigning a primary task of arithmetic questions, and a secondary task of responding to bend notifications. Our demonstration will show the set-up of our study to encourage discussion on possible applications of shape changing notifications in peripheral locations.
... It has further been shown that using external devices leveraging the peripheral vision of users results in more accurate and overall less disruptive delivery (L. Jones, McClelland, Thongsouksanoumane, & Girouard, 2017;K. Kobayashi & Yamada, 2013;Rasmussen, Troiano, Petersen, Simonsen, & Hornbaek, 2016). ...
... It has further been shown that using external devices leveraging the peripheral vision of users results in more accurate and overall less disruptive delivery (L. Jones et al., 2017;K. Kobayashi & Yamada, 2013;Rasmussen et al., 2016). ...
... Therefore, systems that enable users to distinguish between different types of notification delivery for different applications and to easily prioritise them over each other in specific moments appear especially promising and could leverage findings on decreasing the overall disruptiveness of notifications, for example around batching (Fitz et al., 2019;Mark et al., 2016), predicting appropriate breakpoints (Exler et al., 2017;Okoshi, Nozaki, et al., 2016;Pejovic & Musolesi, 2014;Weber et al., 2017), and offering different and new types of notification delivery (L. Jones et al., 2017;K. Kobayashi & Yamada, 2013;Lopez-Tovar et al., 2015;Rasmussen et al., 2016). ...
This thesis investigates smartphone use in naturally occurring contexts with a dataset comprising 200 hours of audio-visual first-person recordings from wearable cameras, and self-confrontation interview video footage (N = 41 users). The situated context in which smartphone use takes place has often been overlooked because of the technical difficulty of capturing context of use, actual action of users, and their subjective experience simultaneously. This research project contributes to filling this gap, with a detailed, mixed-methods analysis of over a thousand individual phone engagement behaviours (EB). We observe that (a) the smartphone is a key structuring element in the flow of daily activities. Participants report complex strategies on how they manage engaging with or avoiding their devices. (b) Unexpectedly, we find that the majority of EB (89%) are initiated by users, not devices; users engage with the phone roughly every five minutes regardless of the context they are in. (c) A large portion of EB seems to stem from contextual cues and an unconscious urge to pick up the device, even when there is no clear reason to do so. d) Participants are surprised about, and often unhappy with how frequently they mindlessly reach for the phone. Our in-depth analysis unveils several overlapping layers of motivations and triggers driving EB. Monitoring incoming notifications, managing time use, responding to social pressures, actually completing a task with the phone, design factors, unconscious urges, as well as the accessibility of the device, and most importantly its affordance for distraction all contribute to picking up the phone. This user drive for EB is used by providers to feed the attention economy. So far, keeping the smartphone outside of the visual field and immediate reach has appeared as the only efficient strategy to prevent overuse.
... Recent shape-changing interfaces make use of actuators (e.g., mechanical [2], thermal [16], magnetic [34], acoustic [52], pneumatic [64], or biologic [65]) to control the physical properties (e.g., form [18], viscosity [25], volume [27], position [33], texture [35], orientation [57]) of surfaces (e.g., [16]), curves (e.g., [39]) that they use as system input or output. Some shape-changing interfaces that relate to our context use ambient awareness to subtly inform at offices (e.g., [22,26]). These interfaces exploit ambient awareness-the ability of being aware of the surrounding information [61]-and they are able to move from peripheral attention to central attention of users, and the other way round [59]. ...
... We hypothesize that continous speed changes affect perception rates in peripheral vision. Kobayashi and Yamada [31], and Jones et al. [26] evaluated slow and quiet motion using shape-changing interfaces: but the later tested motion out of the view field, and the latter tested constant speed only. Traschütz et al. [58] study the detection instantaneous speed change in peripheral vision. ...
We present CairnFORM, a shape-changing cylindrical display that physicalizes forecasts of renewable energy availability. CairnFORM aims at creating and encouraging new socially-shared practices by displaying energy data in collective and public spaces, such as public places and workplaces. It is 360°-readable, and as a dynamic physical ring chart, it can change its cylindrical symmetry with quiet motion. We conducted two user studies. The first study clearly revealed the attractiveness of CairnFORM in a public place and its usability for a range task and for a compare task. Consequently, this makes CairnFORM useful to analyze renewable energy availability. The second study revealed that a non-constant motion speed is the better visualization stimulus at a workplace.
VIDEO: youtu.be/wZ_3CtDllbA
... [19]), it is important to bear in mind that the phone not delivering messages will increase fomo and lead to subsequent self-interruptions. Therefore, systems that enable users to distinguish between different types of notification delivery for different applications and to easily prioritise them over each other in specific moments appear especially promising and could leverage findings on decreasing the overall disruptiveness of notifications, for example around batching [29,54], predicting appropriate breakpoints [25,60,62,76], and offering different and new types of notification delivery [42,44,50,66]. Users could, thus, distinguish between information that they want 'forced' upon them, be gently alerted to, and information that only needs to be included in the 'digest' the next time they check their lock screen to manage their notifications. ...
Smartphone use usually refers to what happens after users unlock their devices. But a large number of smartphone interactions actually take place on the lock screen of the phone. This paper presents evidence from a mixed-methods study using a situated video-ethnography technique (SEBE) and a dataset of over 200h of first-person and interview recordings with 221 unique lock screen checks (n=41). We find eight categories contextual antecedents to locked smartphone use that influence the nature and the content of the subsequent smartphone interaction. Overall, locked smartphone use emerges as a means to structure the flow of daily activities and to balance between not getting too distracted and not experiencing fomo (the fear of missing out). It also appears as highly habitualised, which can cause over-use and disruption. Based on this analysis, we provide recommendations on how intervention and design approaches can leverage differences in context and purpose of locked smartphone use to improve user experience.
... vibration or audible) seems to be appropriate for only 45% of situations; by adding visual or LED flashes, acceptance of notifications increased by 60% (Lopez-Tovar, Charalambous, & Dowell, 2015). It has further been shown that using external devices leveraging the peripheral vision of users results in more accurate and overall less disruptive delivery (Jones, McClelland, Thongsouksanoumane, & Girouard, 2017;Kobayashi & Yamada, 2013;Rasmussen, Troiano, Petersen, Simonsen, & Hornbaek, 2016). Lastly, giving users more options to respond to notifications than simply 'opening' them (Banovic, Brant, Mankoff, & Dey, 2014) and different gestures or other haptic interactions (Mayer, Lischke, Woźniak, & Henze, 2018) can increase engagement with ongoing tasks and make device interactions more efficient. ...
Notifications are one of the core functionalities of smartphones. Previous research suggests they can be a major disruption to the professional and private lives of users. This paper presents evidence from a mixed-methods study using first-person wearable video cameras, comprising 200 h of audio-visual first-person, and self-confrontation interview footage with 1130 unique smartphone interactions (N = 37 users), to situate and analyse the disruptiveness of notifications in real-world contexts. We show how smartphone interactions are driven by a complex set of routines and habits users develop over time. We furthermore observe that while the duration of interactions varies, the intervals between interactions remain largely invariant across different activity and location contexts, and for being alone or in the company of others. Importantly, we find that 89% of smartphone interactions are initiated by users, not by notifications. Overall this suggests that the disruptiveness of smartphones is rooted within learned user behaviours, not devices.
... Existing techniques to implement deformable surfaces suffer from major drawbacks [16]. One approach requires cumbersome instrumentation of the surface itself, through, e.g., optical [12] or bend sensors [10,16]. This approach results in fragile, thick, and hard-to-build prototypes. ...
We present WiBend, a system that recognizes bending gestures as the input modalities for interacting on non-instrumented and deformable surfaces using WiFi signals. WiBend takes advantage of off-the-shelf 802.11 (Wi-Fi) devices and Channel State Information (CSI) measurements of packet transmissions when the user is placed and interacting between a Wi-Fi transmitter and a receiver. We have performed extensive user experiments in an instrumented laboratory to obtain data for training the HMM models and for evaluating the precision of WiBend. During the experiments, participants performed 12 distinct bending gestures with three surface sizes, two bending speeds and two different directions. The performance evaluation results show that WiBend can distinguish between 12 bending gestures with a precision of 84% on average.
... Peripheral vision is generally considered for display of information that can be detected without a priori focus, in games [13] and other areas of HCI, for example, deliver notifications without disrupting the task in focus [25] (e.g., keeping the eyes on the road while driving [18]). Recently, Luyten et al. proposed a near-eye display for presentation of peripheral information that is positioned relative to the user's eyes such that it is impossible to focus on it [28]. ...
In this work, we challenge the Gaze interaction paradigm "What you see is what you get" to introduce "playing with peripheral vision". We developed the conceptual framework to introduce this novel gaze-aware game dynamic. We illustrated the concept with SuperVision, a collection of three games that play with peripheral vision. We propose perceptual and interaction challenges that require players not to look and rely on their periphery. To validate the game dynamic and experience, we conducted a user study with twenty-four participants. Results show how the game concept created an engaging and playful experience playing with peripheral vision. Participants showed proficiency in overcoming the game challenges, developing clear strategies to succeed. Moreover, we found evidence that playing the game can affect our visual skills, with greater peripheral awareness.
... The circumstance of having to notify or remind users at times when they are away from a display has also been investigated, including vibrating wearables [9] and LEDs [1, 8, 14-16, 25, 56, 61]. A related stream of research addresses communicating information without having to capture the user's attention at all [2,3,10,29,30,46]. ...
Full-coverage displays can place visual content anywhere on the interior surfaces of a room (e.g., a weather display near the coat stand). In these settings, digital artefacts can be located behind the user and out of their field of view - meaning that it can be difficult to notify the user when these artefacts need attention. Although much research has been carried out on notification, little is known about how best to direct people to the necessary location in room environments. We designed five diverse attention-guiding techniques for full-coverage display rooms, and evaluated them in a study where participants completed search tasks guided by the different techniques. Our study provides new results about notification in full-coverage displays: we showed benefits of persistent visualisations that could be followed all the way to the target and that indicate distance-to-target. Our findings provide useful information for improving the usability of interactive full-coverage environments.
We explore the design of a watch that can deliver notifications through shape changes, with a specific focus on changes in curvature at the back of the watch face. We explain our design choices and the challenges we faced while creating such a watch. We conducted an experimental study to determine the absolute detection threshold (ADT) of this novel form of feedback. We compared the ADT of two different watches, both of which have a back face that can change its curvature and make contact with the wearer's wrist to notify them. These two watches exhibit different shapes when inflated with high air pressure. To determine the ADT, we conducted a standard two-down, one-up adaptive staircase procedure. Our findings show that an ADT of 3.86 psi is required to inflate the back surface for detection by participants. Overall, our qualitative findings indicate that participants enjoyed this novel type of feedback and could feel different sensations with each watch.
The concept of calm technology envisions that interaction with technology should consume minimal resources and cause as few distractions as possible. The main goal of our study was to compare different forms of embodiment of Voice User Interfaces (VUI) in terms of how much they distract a user from a cognitive task. We used a voice-only system without physical embodiment (voice-only), a physical embodied system without anthropomorphic features (physical embodied), and a social embodied VUI with social cues such as eye movements (social embodied). In addition, we explored the relationship between design features of the VUI and perceived distraction, social presence, and perceived calm. Twenty-four participants carried out four different cognitive tasks with the three different VUI and one round of cognitive tasks without any VUI present. The cognitive tasks were chosen from a serious game (BrainTagger Suit) and included measurements of cognitive speed, working memory, visual memory, and process inhibition. Overall, results indicated the voice-only VUI caused the least distraction, especially for cognitive speed, while slightly showing impairment for visual memory. Social embodied VUI appeared to cause the most distraction across the four cognitive tasks with physical embodied VUI falling in between. Surprisingly, social presence was perceived as highest for the voice-only system which at the same time received the lowest scores for perceived calm. The advantages and disadvantages of each VUI are discussed.
People with Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) performing computer work for 4+ hours/day should take microbreaks every hour to reduce their symptoms. Unlike apps and notifications, tangible user interfaces offer the opportunity to provide non-focus-demanding and calm break-reminders in users’ periphery. This paper explores this design space to identify the design parameters of break-reminders as everyday things. First, we discuss and analyze our initial co-designing study, where 11 participants with RSI created 9 low-fidelity prototypes. Then, we present our results-led high-fidelity prototypes and demonstrate the use of the findings in directing the design decisions of the technical implementation. Finally, we take our designs back to users in a second study to gain deeper insight on their reflection on physical break reminders. Results show how users designed for calmness and ubiquity in their everyday environment, playful user engagement and emotional shape-shifting among other design qualities.
In this paper, we describe a notification method with peripheral cognition technology that uses a human cognitive characteristic. The method achieves notification without interrupting users' primary tasks. We developed a shape changing device that change its shape to notify the arrival of information. Such behavior enables a user to easily find and accept notifications without interruption when their attention on the primary task decreases. The result of an experiment showed that the successful notification rate was 45.5%.
Post-it notes are a popular paper format that serves a multitude of purposes in our daily lives, as they provide excellent affordances for quick capturing of informal notes, and location-sensitive reminding. In this paper, we present Move-it, a system that combines Post-it notes with a technologically enhanced paperclip to demonstrate how a passive piece of paper can be turned into an “active” medium that conveys information through motion. We present two application examples that investigate the applicability of Move-it sticky notes for ambient information awareness. In comparison to existing notification systems, experimental results show that they reduce negative effects of interruptions on emotional state and performance, and provide unique affordances by combining advantages of physical and digital systems into a novel active paper interface.
We report on a field study of the multitasking beha vior of computer users focused on the suspension and resumption of tasks. Data was collected with a tool that logge d users' interactions with software applications and their a ssociated windows, as well as incoming instant messaging and email alerts. We describe methods, summarize results, and discuss design guidelines suggested by the findings. Author Keywords
Desktop notifications are designed to provide awareness of information while a user is attending to a primary task. Unfortunately the awareness can come with the price of disruption to the focal task. We review results of a field study on the use and perceived value of email notifications in the workplace. We recorded users' interactions with software applications for two weeks and studied how notifications or their forced absence influenced users' quest for awareness of new email arrival, as well as the impact of notifications on their overall task focus. Results showed that users view notifications as a mechanism to provide passive awareness rather than a trigger to switch tasks. Turing off notifications cause some users to self interrupt more to explicitly monitor email arrival, while others appear to be able to better focus on their tasks. Users acknowledge notifications as disruptive, yet opt for them because of their perceived value in providing awareness.
A field study in ten homes was conducted to understand what influences users’ acceptability of notifications in the home environment. The key finding is that perceived message urgency is the primary indicator of acceptability of notifications in the home—if people think a message is urgent, they want the message to be shown immediately, regardless of what they are doing at the time of notification. The study also shows that the acceptability of low-urgent and medium-urgent messages could be improved by taking into account mental activity load at the time of notification. No effect of physical activity was found on acceptability. The results suggest that to improve the scheduling of notifications in the home, notification systems need a mechanism assessing both the message urgency and the mental activity load, whereas physical activity can be ignored. From a methodological point of view, it is difficult to measure acceptability of notifications in a realistic setting, given the need to balance experimental control with realistic context. The present paper suggests a way to introduce controlled notifications and subjective measurements of acceptability in homes.
" Researchers have been investigating shape-changing interfaces, however technologies for thin, reversible shape change remain complicated to fabricate. uniMorph is an enabling technology for rapid digital fabrication of customized thin-film shape-changing interfaces. By combining the thermoelectric characteristics of copper with the high thermal expansion rate of ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene, we are able to actuate the shape of flexible circuit composites directly. The shape-changing actuation is enabled by a temperature driven mechanism and reduces the complexity of fabrication for thin shape-changing interfaces. In this paper we describe how to design and fabricate thin uniMorph composites. We present composites that are actuated by either environmental temperature changes or active heating of embedded structures and provide a systematic overview of shape-changing primitives. Finally, we present different sensing techniques that leverage the existing copper structures or can be seamlessly embedded into the uniMorph composite. To demonstrate the wide applicability of uniMorph, we present several applications in ubiquitous and mobile computing.
We introduce Wrigglo, a shape-changing smart phone peripheral that allows pairs of users to share wriggling movements with one another. Attached to a smart phone, Wrigglo captures the sender's motions and activates the receiver's Wrigglo which repeats the motion simultaneously. The result of our in-lab use observation with twelve couples showed that Wrigglo supported emotional and functional roles of body gestures and postures, creating vocabularies related to the motion of specific body parts and, to some extent, reflected the connected user's presence through the device's movement. Through its peripheral anthropomorphization, Wrigglo can deliver new forms of telepresence by embodied posturing and gesturing in mobile communication.
A lot has been written about the Internet and where it is leading. We will say only a little. The Internet is deeply influencing the business and practice of technology. Millions of new people and their information have become interconnected. Late at night, around 6am while falling asleep after twenty hours at the keyboard, the sensitive technologist can sometimes hear those 35 million web pages, 300 thousand hosts, and 90 million users shouting "pay attention to me!" The important waves of technological change are those that fundamentally alter the place of technology in our lives. What matters is not technology itself, but its relationship to us.
This work explores the properties of different output modalities as notification mechanisms in the context of messaging. In particular, the olfactory (smell) modality is introduced as a potential alternative to visual and auditory modalities for providing messaging notifications. An experiment was performed to compare these modalities as secondary display mechanisms used to deliver notifications to users working on a cognitively engaging primary task. It was verified that the disruptiveness and effectiveness of notifications varied with the notification modality. The olfactory modality was shown to be less effective in delivering notifications than the other modalities, but produced a less disruptive effect on user engagement in the primary task. Our results serve as a starting point for future research into the use of olfactory notification in messaging systems.