Hi everyone, thank you all for attending this
talk. I'm Judith Borghouts, I'm a researcher at University of California Irvine, and I'm
excited to talk about work that I did during my PhD with my advisors prof. Duncan Brumby
and prof. Anna Cox at University College London on how people manage interruptions in the
workplace, and how they can best be supported in managing these.
Why are interruptions such a problem? Well, as we all may know from
our own experience, interruptions during work are common. If we don't get interrupted
by other colleagues, we will find ways to interrupt ourselves. For example, many tasks
require us to regularly interrupt and look up information we need, for example from documents,
email. These interruptions are called inquiries, and though they are needed to progress with
the task, like any type of interruption they can be disruptive: it can slow down work,
increase errors we make, and it is challenging to remain focused. The longer an interruption
takes, the more disruptive it is, so it is important to manage the time we spend on these
interruptions.
So in this paper, we looked at how interruption management tools
can support users in managing inquiries. In order to address this queston we conducted
three studies.
We first observed and interviewed people in an office workplace.
Based on the findings from this first study, we developed TimeToFocus, a notification tool
showing people the duration of their interruptions while they are working on a task. We evaluated
this tool in a field study, and were interested to see if this feedback can increase awareness
of time spent on interruptions. We then conducted an online experiment to test whether
this awareness then actually changes people's interruption behavior.
Through our interviews and observations, It was interesting to find
that physical and digital interruptions were handled differently. If people had to physically
get up to retrieve information, they would postpone physical interruptions until a convenient
moment in the task because it takes time.
If it had to be retrieved from digital sources however, people would
always address it immediately. The explanation people gave was; well it will only take a
minute, it's just a quick switch to another computer window. We observed that it could
actually take much longer than what people described, because people had to switch between
many different windows, documents, and would often get distracted, for example they would
open their email inbox and end up reading another email that was not relevant to what they
were working on.
We then wondered: if people would be made aware how long these
interruptions actually take and how long they are away from their core task, could that
help them in managing their time better?
To test this, we developed a browser extension called TimeToFocus, which
gives you feedback on how much time you spend on interruptions. And how this works is as
follows:
say you want to write a paper. You are in your browser, in Google
Docs or any other platform, click on the TimeToFocus icon in the top-right corner, and once you
do that
A popup will appear saying ok, this is now the main task you are
focusing on.
you start writing, and at one point you realize you need to insert
a reference. And you think, you know what, instead of continuing to write, I'll just
briefly stop and quickly look it up now, it'll only take a sec.
The moment you open up another tab and switch away, you will see
a notification that will say, you know every time you leave this task, it on average takes
you this long to get back.
To evaluate TimeToFocus, we conducted a field study with
nine office workers who got to use it for a week.
We found that office workers were aware they interrupted often,
but not for how long. The feedback made them reflect on what they were doing during
an interruption, and where possible they tried to reduce irrelevant activities.
We then followed up this study with an online experiment, to test
if this reflection actually changes people's behavior. People had to conduct
a data entry task that required them to look up information from another document. We measured
whether this feedback had an effect on people's interruption behaviour and
task performance. We found that people who were given feedback made shorter interruptions,
were faster to complete the task, and made fewer errors.
So taken together, these studies
presents empirical evidence
that showing people how long they go away for can help reduce time spent on interruptions and how people manage their time.
This in turn can improve task focus, and productivity in completing the task at hand.
A known issue with behavioral interventions is a drop in engagement over
time; so an obvious next step would be to study whether people would continue to engage
with it and adjust their behavior over time. The intervention is also available online;
so if interruptions is something you struggle with in your work, you can download it using
the link provided on the slide. Thank you.