Effects of intelligent notification management on users and their tasks

• DOI: 10.1145/1357054.1357070
• Publication Date: 2008-04-08T16:27:59Z
• Authors: Shamsi T. Iqbal; Brian P. Bailey
• Keywords: 05 social sciences; 0501 psychology and cognitive sciences

We present a novel system for notification management and report results from two studies testing its performance and impact. The system uses statistical models to realize defer-to-breakpoint policies for managing notifications. The first study tested how well the models detect three types of breakpoints within novel task sequences. Results show that the models detect breakpoints reasonably well, but struggle to differentiate their type. Our second study explored effects of managing notifications with our system on users and their tasks. Results showed that scheduling notifications at breakpoints reduces frustration and reaction time relative to delivering them immediately. We also found that the relevance of notification content determines the type of breakpoint at which it should be delivered. The core concept of scheduling notifications at breakpoints fits well with how users prefer notifications to be managed. This indicates that users would likely adopt the use of notification management systems in practice.