Unknown: My name is Joseph
chain and in this video I'll
present the paper when the tab
comes to challenges in the
cost structure of browser tab
usage. So before browser tabs,
the internet in the 90s was
characterized by researchers
as a recurrent system, because
at the time, user will
frequently revisit the same
websites. So research then
focused on bookmarking to
allow users to revisit
websites more efficiently.
Today, our online activities
have become much more complex.
So instead of going to the
same websites, we frequently
explore large collections of
web pages to support our
complex tasks. So for example,
doing a product comparison
using listicles, blogs and
online reviews. So while tabs
have allowed us to open many
web pages and without
cluttering our desktops, as
online has become increasingly
more complex. And we may start
to see the scaling advantage
diminishing. So what does
research currently know about
how people use tabs, the last
in-depth study was conducted
more than a decade ago. And
since tabs were relatively new
at the time, the study focused
on the benefits of using
browser tabs over only using
browser windows. However,
there is growing evidence that
tabs today are also causing
issues, commonly referred to
as tab overload, or tab
hoarding. recent survey have
shown a significant segment of
users and now have issues with
browser tabs. However, our
survey also suggests that
there's more to this problem
than the simple explanation
that the user just being lazy.
So to understand why user keep
and close tabs, we interviewed
10 researchers for four times
over a two week period to
discuss their open tabs,
focusing on the issues they
had encountered. We then using
this results, we then surveyed
103 participants from the
broader population for
national context. So we found
that people have varying
thresholds for the number of
tabs they keep. The median
number was eight tabs, and
around 67% reported that they
have to have issues at least
once a week showing that this
is now a common issue. So what
issues are tabs causing today,
we quoted an interview and we
found four drivers, pressuring
users to close tabs from
feeling overwhelmed too
difficult setting focus to
hardware related pressures,
such as screen share real
estate or computing power. We
also found users feeling
shameful and embarrassed for
not being more organized,
especially when they needed to
share their screens with
others. So with all these
adverse effects, pushing users
to close tabs, what's
preventing them from actually
doing so without six pressures
for keeping tabs open, some of
which were consistent with the
study back in 2010, such as
keeping tabs around as
reminders or as quick
references. We also found new
pressures that may not fit a
rational economics view of
cost structures. For example,
some pause where the effort
spent on opening tabs in the
first place sure to give them
an intrinsic value, even when
they were no longer useful for
the users. Another one was a
mismatch between the
aspirational and the actual
self where users would collect
more tabs than they can
realistically process. One
participant described her to
have as "a big list that I was
supposed to get to, but I
never did." We also found
participants who saw their
tabs as a manifestation of
their mental model during
complex tasks. So they keep
sets of tabs around so that
they can resume their tasks in
the future. relatedly. They
also pointed to how it can be
difficult to judge the
relevance of their camps
during these complex tasks.
One said, "none of these tabs
seem completely wrong. But
they're also not exactly what
I'm looking for." Another
participant pointed to how the
relevance of the same tab
might even change over time as
they explore more information.
So what we found are these
opposing pressures, pushing
users to keep and close tabs
causing frictions in their
workflows, making it hard for
them to manage their tabs
effectively. So what can we do
about it? One of our design
implications was based on the
observation that users manages
their attention at the task
level, and not at the tab
level. So future browsers
should make it easier for
users to organize their tabs
based on their task structure
so that they can efficiently
manage them and context switch
between tasks. So one
direction is to make the task
boundary more salient. And
Chrome has recently introduced
the feature of tab groups
which could better support
this. But we also heard from
participant that it is still
very costly to always remember
to put your tabs in the right
group. So another direction is
to make predictions about
these tasks structures in the
browser to help people manage
their tabs at the task level.
For example, we can look to
search engine algorithms that
have long been able to query
us into larger tasks with very
high precision. So to
conclude, we visited today's
tab browsing behavior, a
decade after the last in depth
study that only focused on the
benefits of tabs. We found
that tabs are causing issues
for a significant segment of
users today. And then we
identify a set of opposing
pressures causing this these
issues. Please see our paper
for more details, including an
additional study for
developing a set of design
implications. Thank you.