Mediating disruption in human-computer interaction from implicit metrics of attention

Multitasking environments cause people to be interrupted constantly, often disrupting their ongoing activities and impeding reaching their goals. This thesis presents a disruption reducing approach designed to support the user's goals and optimize productivity that is based on a model of the user's receptivity to an interruption. The model uses knowledge of the interruption content, context and priority of the task(s) in progress, user actions and goal-related concepts to mediate interruptions. The disruption management model is distinct from previous work by the addition of implicit sensors that deduce the interruption content and user context to help determine when an interruption will disrupt an ongoing activity. Domain-independent implicit sensors include mouse and keyboard behaviors, and goal-related concepts extracted from the user documents. The model also identifies the contextual relationship between interruptions and user goals as an important factor in how interruptions are controlled. The degree to which interruptions are related to the user goal determines how those interruptions will be received. We tested and evolved the model in various cases and showed significant improvement in both productivity and satisfaction. A disruption manager application controls interruptions on common desktop computing activities, such as web browsing and instant messaging. The disruption manager demonstrates that mediating interruptions by supporting the user goals can improve performance and overall productivity. Our evaluation shows an improvement in success of over 25% across prioritization conditions for real life computing environments.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2007

Author dc:creator

• Arroyo Acosta, Ernesto, 1978-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ted Selker.

• Architecture. Program in Media Arts and Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41709

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/41709