In this study we designed an assistive notification mechanism that did not interrupt users' primary task so that they could focus on their main activity in a desktop environment. When a notification appeared in the peripheral area of the users' field of view, we gave hints such as the color of cursor or a label to cursor to lead their attention to the notification that was originally outside of users' field of view. To test our mechanism, we performed a multi-task experiment in a desktop environment with a word-finding game and the mouse cursor hints. The result revealed that the color hint as well as label hint coming from the cursor could increase the accuracy of participants’ ability to aware of the notification and decrease their subjective frustration while having little effect on their primary task. This implies that these approaches can be a potential assistive mechanism to current notification systems in a desktop environment.
Using Cursor Hints to Supplement a Less Interruptive Desktop Notification
1. HFES 2014 Annual Meeting
Using Cursor Hints to
Supplement a Less
Interruptive Desktop
Notification
Ya-Hsin Hung
hung17@purdue.edu
Mina Ostovari
mostovar@purdue.edu
School of Industrial Engineering
3. What is a Notification?
A mechanism that awares users about new information while
they are focusing on a primary task such as typing or
programing (Fabian et al., 2004).
↘ Without notification we might miss alerts from programs, chats,
emails…
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4. Research about Notifications
Utilizing different modalities (Altosaar, Vertegaal, Sohn, & Cheng, 2006, Bhatia &
McCrickard, 2006, Warnock, McGee-Lennon, & Brewster, 2013).
Scheduling time of the notifications (Iqbal & Bailey, 2008, Chen, Epps, & Chen,
2013).
Using external devices (Mahler, Hermann, & Weber, 2009).
Giving subtle hints (Zhang, Tu, & Vronay, 2005).
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5. Goal of the research
Introducing an assistive mechanism to the current notification
systems that causes less interruption but is still efficient for
desktop environment.
Giving a slight hint in the user’s focal area to lead user’s
attention to the notification.
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6. Hypotheses
H1 When we apply the assistive mechanism:
↘ H1A participants perform better in the primary task.
↘ H1B participants perform better in detecting a notification.
H2 Participants would feel less demanded after adding our
mechanism and decrease their cognitive loading in six aspects
of NASA-TLX.
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10. 4 Groups of Participants
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Experiment Group 1
(Color)
Control Group
(Normal)
Notes Notes
Experiment Group 2
(Label)
Experiment Group 3
(Color & Label)
11. Measurements
Primary Task:
↘ Effectiveness (Ratio of correct chosen cards in percentage)
↘ Error rate (Ratio of wrong chosen cards in percentage)
Secondary Task:
↘ Accuracy (Ratio of correct selected icon sent the notification in
percentage)
NASA-TLX:
↘ Mental Demand, Physical Demand, Temporal Demand, Performance,
Effort, and Frustration
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12. Procedure
1. Read the announcements and introduction explaining the goal
of the study.
2. Signed the consent form and filled a demographic survey.
3. 3 demos before doing the experiment.
4. 10 trials of word-finding games.
5. A post-survey based on NASA-TLX.
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18. Conclusions
Changing the color as well as adding label of the cursor
increases the accuracy of notification awareness.
However, adding label of the cursor would increase the error
rate.
Changing the color of the cursor can decrease the frustration of
participants.
Our design is a potential assistive mechanism for notification
systems in the desktop environment.
Test more variables in the future.
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19. Reference
19
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Artefacts and Environments.
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voice notifications. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors
in Computing Systems.
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20. 20
Ya-Hsin Hung
hung17@purdue.edu
Mina Ostovari
mostovar@purdue.edu
Editor's Notes
Lights dims & temperature change.
Add animation
short
15 cards, with different words in each.
Participants needed to click on the cards to find the words matching the shapes.
10 trials, each trial is 15 seconds. The sequence is randomized.
When playing the word-finding game, notification showed up from one of the four icons at the bottom of the screen during each trial.
Participants needed to pay attention and find out which icon sent the notification.
Recruiting participants through Amazon Mechanical Turk. A crowdsourcing Internet marketspace.
Participants had higher accuracy with changing cursor color (M=81.2%)than without (M=67.0%), the difference was significant*.
Participants had higher accuracy with adding a label (M=85.5%)than without (M=62.7%), the difference was significant**.
significant interaction*** of changing color and adding label.
No significant difference among the effectiveness.
For experimental group 2, significant difference among the error rates.
Participants had lower frustration with changing cursor color (M=3.03) than without changing cursor color (M=3.97), the difference is significant(F(1,116)= 6.93, p=0.0096).