Open Collections

Janzen, Izabelle Foster

University of British Columbia

Mobile devices deliver ‘notifications’ that interrupt the user for events like receiving text messages and emails. However, frequent interruptions reduce productivity and can increase stress. Notification management tools can reduce this distraction but substantial barriers, such as time and effort, prevent most users from managing their notifications. In this dissertation, I present three projects that aim to understand how to better support proactive notification management and I systematically design a novel notification management tool to better address user needs. We used a qualitative, user-centered approach consisting of interviews (N=71) and surveys (N=140). First, we explored how the notification management needs of older adults compared to the general population because other forms of distraction disproportionately impact older adults but their notification management needs had not been studied. Through semi-structured interviews (N=20) with both younger and older adults, we identified that many users desire a sense of control and agency over their attention that was difficult to achieve with current notification management technology. Second, we characterized how users could proactively control notifications through four design axes. We created five notification management design concepts that included design elements from under-explored areas of our design axes. Through semi-structured interviews (N=30), we probed user reactions to our design concepts to identify what design elements help address user concerns, such as a lack of control in notification management. The results of this study suggested there was strong interest to include reflective design elements within notification management. Lastly, we leveraged these results and a supplementary survey of users’ notification preferences (N=140) to design a novel notification management tool. The Reflective Spring Cleaning design supported infrequent notification management with visualizations of notification usage data and suggestions for personalization. We evaluated this design through a longitudinal study organized around semi-structured interviews (N=21). Our results demonstrated how the concept encouraged and supported users to proactively manage notifications through critical reflection on the impact of notifications. Our work outlines key design directions for how notification management tools can support proactive notification management and provide users a sense of control over their attention.

Text

2022-12-12

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/83396

Computer Science

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/