Piotr D. Adamczyk

If not now, when?: the effects of interruption at different moments within task execution

User attention is a scarce resource, and users are susceptible to interruption overload. Systems do not reason about the effects of interrupting a user during a task sequence. In this study, we measure effects of interrupting a user at different moments within task execution in terms of task performance, emotional state, and social attribution. Task models were developed using event perception techniques, and the resulting models were used to identify interruption timings based on a users predicted cognitive load. Our results show that different interruption moments have different impacts on user emotional state and positive social attribution, and suggest that a system could enable a user to maintain a high level of awareness while mitigating the disruptive effects of interruption. We discuss implications of these results for the design of an attention manager.

Towards an index of opportunity: understanding changes in mental workload during task execution

To contribute to systems that reason about human attention, our work empirically demonstrates how a users mental workload changes during task execution. We conducted a study where users performed interactive, hierarchical tasks while mental workload was measured through the use of pupil size. Results show that (i) different types of subtasks impose different mental workload, (ii) workload decreases at subtask boundaries, (iii) workload decreases more at boundaries higher in a task model and less at boundaries lower in the model, (iv) workload changes among subtask boundaries within the same level of a task model, and (v) effective understanding of why changes in workload occur requires that the measure be tightly coupled to a validated task model. From the results, we show how to map mental workload onto a computational Index of Opportunity that systems can use to better reason about human attention.

A framework for specifying and monitoring user tasks

Interrupting users engaged in tasks typically has negative effects on their task completion time, error rate, and affective state. Empirical research has shown that these negative effects can be mitigated by deferring interruptions until more opportune moments in a user’s task sequence. However, existing systems that reason about when to interrupt do not have access to models of user tasks that would allow for such finer-grained temporal reasoning. To enable this reasoning, we have developed an integrated framework for specifying and monitoring user tasks. For task specification, our framework provides a language that supports expressive specification of tasks using a concise notation. For task monitoring, our framework provides an event database and handler that manages events from any instrumented application and a task monitor that observes a user’s progress through specified tasks. We describe the design and implementation of our framework, showing how it can be used to specify and monitor practical, representative user tasks. We also report results from two user studies measuring the effectiveness of our existing implementation. The use of our framework will enable attention aware systems to consider a user’s position in a task when reasoning about when to interrupt.

DJogger: a mobile dynamic music device

Maintaining motivation during exercise can be difficult for people engaged in individual workout routines. A common method for maintaining pace and staying motivated is the introduction of a musical soundtrack. The pace of the music and selection of songs influences the workout by suggesting how one should adjust their effort, or help with the timing of a precise regimen. To explore the impact of music on pace and motivation in exercise, we present our work so far on DJogger. DJogger builds a model of a runners pace and uses this information along with a workout plan to dynamically adjust the musical soundtrack. DJogger contributes a compelling application of HCI to fitness, and explores methods for real world wearable evaluation.

A method, system, and tools for intelligent interruption management

Interrupting users engaged in tasks typically has negative effects on their task completion time, error rate, and affective state. Empirical research has shown that these negative effects can be mitigated by deferring interruptions until more opportune moments in a users task sequence. However, existing systems that reason about when to interrupt do not have access to task models that would allow for such finer-grained temporal reasoning. We outline our method of finding opportune moments that links a physiological measure of workload with task modeling techniques and theories of attention. We describe the design and implementation of our interruption management system, showing how it can be used to specify and monitor practical, representative user tasks. We discuss our ongoing empirical work in this area, and how the use of our framework may enable attention aware systems to consider a users position in a task when reasoning about when to interrupt.

Supporting multidisciplinary collaboration: requirements from novel HCI education

Many collaborative design tools may suffer from being too generic to address the specific complexities inherent in multidisciplinary collaboration. We provide accounts of several multidisciplinary HCI courses at our institution, elaborating on the challenges student teams face when integrating design practice from a wide variety of disciplines. Of particular interest are the distinct approaches that these multidisciplinary teams adopt that differ from more common forms of collaborative design. We suggest reasons for the poor rate of adoption of existing collaborative support tools and outline specific suggestions for directions in both ethnographic studies of multidisciplinary collaboration and collaborative systems design.

Urban Computing and Mobile Devices

Learn about projects on participant-environment interaction, the leveraging of information from mobile sensors, user authentication, and urban computing navigation.

HCI and new media arts: methodology and evaluation

Successful collaborations between New Media Arts and HCI tend to develop hybrid techniques that promote balanced contributions from both disciplines. However, since many of these collaborations are one-off or highly dependent on the researchers/artists involved, systematic discussions of the role and impact of the various evaluation techniques and methodologies are missing. This workshop is aimed at practitioners from both HCI and the Arts as a venue to discuss the contribution that one anothers techniques have made to their own practice, evaluate critical issues in HCI/New Media Collaboration, and examine ways that existing approaches can be extended for a deeper role in practice, design, and research.

Seeing sounds: exploring musical social networks

Information gathering from multimedia retrieval systems is aided by effective visualization, but the degree to which visualization is effective depends in part on the way the context of the results is presented. When relationships represent media rich connections, static visualization alone may not be enough. This work explores how to represent context and utilize multimedia to convey a more accurate sense of search results. As a representative case, we explore various presentations of social networks formed by expert opinions of musical artist similarity. Our work extends research in information visualization and music retrieval to create a multimedia search experience. Three interactive presentation styles are used; graph-based 2D, Desktop 3D (VRML), and CAVE (immersive Virtual Reality). Visual models are augmented with spatial audio in 3D, and hyperlinks to sound files in 2D. Results of a preliminary user study of these styles are discussed along with implications for recommender system design.

Tools in support of creative collaboration

Creativity support tools are set an especially difficult task when they are applied to art/science collaboration. Not because of any fundamental incompatibility between the disciplines, but because creativity support tools are rarely supple enough to manage dramatically shifting requirements at various stages of design or handle the diversity of artifacts that might be generated. Traditional methods of evaluation of collaborative support tools may not address these aspects. This workshop aims to examine three specific areas open to expanded modes of evaluation; the social aspects of tools and tool use, how artifacts are created and manipulated in support tools, and how the expanding contexts of art/science collaborations may be rapidly changing support tool requirements.