You know when you’re on your computer and working hard, but
also, like, sometimes
working less hard,
like maybe your fingers develop an independent ability to visit less productive websites
before you even have time to think about it?
This is why we created Aiki,
and why we wrote a paper about it,
because we’re scientists.
But, like, computer scientists.
Aiki is a martial arts principle, which allows a skilled practitioner
to redirect an opponent’s power.
It is also a browser extension, which lets you redirect your procrastination plans …
… to something more productive.
You input the websites you want to have intercepted
- your procrastination sites -
and any online learning environment
you should be spending time on,
as well as the amount of time you want to spend in the learning environment,
and the procrastination time that this buys you.
Now, every time you visit one of your chosen procrastination sites,
Aiki redirects you to the learning environment
for the amount of time you chose.
Once the time is up, you can visit your procrastination site for the time you specified.
If you’re feeling lazy, you can always circumvent the extension
- or turn it off completely.
And now -
for the science!
We tested Aiki with 10 knowledge workers learning Danish.
We fixed the learning environment
but let them choose any procrastination sites themselves.
They used Aiki for 14 days, and then we evaluated their experience
- and their learning!
We had two formal research questions:
1. Can we show an effect on language learning, using regular, time-limited
micro-interactions or “microlearning”?
2. How is browser redirection experienced by knowledge workers,
as a means of intercepting procrastination behavior?
We’re gonna skip straight to the answers:
There was a general improvement in the Danish skills of the participants,
even after as little as two weeks of using Aiki.
So, YES!
Redirection does seem to be a promising alternative to, say,
blocking certain websites entirely,
and browser redirection does afford microlearning sessions.
The experience evaluation of Aiki was also positive,
and we saw the effect in three different forms:
For some of the participants, the redirection was welcome, and they appreciated the nudge to study, like
“I visited the time-wasting websites more often to use Aiki”
and
“Once your application interrupted me and I read an article then I would not go to the time-wasting page.”
For a few of the participants, the redirection was so annoying that it actually prompted
them to abandon their procrastination quest and return to their task at hand.
“I decided [visiting the procrastination site] wasn’t really worth the effort.
I guess the value of visiting the other website wasn’t offset by, kind of
the cost you have to pay in learning some language.
I’ve used a lot of these tools before and this was the most effective tool I’ve ever used for stopping distraction.”
And finally, the interruption prompted mere reflection on the need to procrastinate:
“Sometimes, typing the URL made me conscious that I was going to be redirected,
and I stopped and returned to what I was doing”
The goal of Aiki was to either minimize procrastination or increase productive behavior.
In the study, Aiki was sometimes seen as a carrot
- where the redirection was a nice alternative to procrastination -
or as a stick
- where the redirection was an annoying interruption that they would rather avoid.
Interestingly, both the carrot and the stick approach are described as
positive by different participants
which leads us to believe that there is potential in evolving the extension to cater differently to these types of users.
The rest of our findings, including all the usability feedback, like
“Give us the stats!” and
“For God’s sake, I needed to go to Facebook that one time!”
are of course in the paper.
Aiki - Turning Procrastination into Microlearning.
We’re happy to share the code if you want to use Aiki yourself.
Thanks for watching!