Bounded-deferral and peripheral interaction: a study on mutual enrichment
Individual · 1 semester
Modern offices form an environment where external stimuli are omnipresent, often to a fault. Increasingly flexible and erratic professional working spaces and the demand of continuous online and offline availability have put a large strain on workers’ ability to stay focused throughout the day (McCrickard, 2003), and there seems to be a demand for sensibility and calmness. This study focused on the domain of peripheral interaction and its inherent movement along the interaction-attention continuum (Bakker, 2015). It builds on the notion that both interactions and information designed to be experienced through the periphery can shift along various levels of user attention during use. This was linked to notifications from mobile phones and a concept called “bounded-deferral” (Horvitz, 2005), a design principle for notifications that delays obtrusive alerts when a user is perceived to be in a focused state. Its implementation has thus far been limited solely to software applications, limiting the possible interactions users can have with incoming notifications. This study presented the incarnation of bounded-deferral in a physical device that is meant to be operated using peripheral interaction and information. Office workers were asked to put their phone into a small container on their desk, that only opened when the device perceived them to be unfocused at that time. Their state was predicted through measurements of sound and movement. The device also counted notifications received on the phone, leading to a continuous consideration between the utility of incoming notifications and the cost of users being interrupted from their focused state. Participants could correct the device by nudging the container to a more open or closed state. The studied data was obtained through random experience sampling via a diary kept by the participants. The results show a positive impact of the usage of the device, including (self-reported) productivity and “flow” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1989), with the connotation that individual differences and differences in perception have to be accounted for, and that user-reported values may be unreliable.
The main validation of this project was a trial with five participants, who used the design for 3 weeks. I performed a statistical analysis on the quantitative results and clustered interview quotes. The final research prototype was refined through some small lo-fi prototypes and iterations. I based my choice of sensors partly on existing research into bounded-deferral, which suggested several parameters that were useful to measure. The accuracy of those measurements and the subsequent actions of the device would be a major factor in generating useful results. I gathered results from a diary study, in which users entered self-reported data at random intervals indicated by the device, and used those as input for a regression analysis in S.PSS. I used the outcome as quantitative evidence to support my conclusions. Furthermore, a decision model for the device was created based on the principle of bounded-deferral. It took inputs from sound and movement, and measured incoming notifications through a vibration sensor. Based on those measurements, it would decide how far to open the lid of the box with a small motor.
References:
Bakker, S., van den Hoven, E., & Eggen, B. (2015). Peripheral interaction: characteristics and considerations. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 19(1), 239-254.
Csikszentmihalyi, M., & LeFevre, J. (1989). Optimal experience in work and leisure. Journal of personality and social psychology, 56(5), 815.
Horvitz, E., Apacible, J., & Subramani, M. (2005, July). Balancing awareness and interruption: Investigation of notification deferral policies. In International Conference on User Modeling (pp. 433-437). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.
McCrickard, D. S., & Chewar, C. M. (2003). Attuning notification design to user goals and attention costs. Communications of the ACM, 46(3), 67-72.