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Tara Matthews,
University of California at Berkeley
12:00 Noon on Thursday, January 18, 2007
TSRB 132
Multitasking is an important part of the way we work, but serious problems
result from fragmenting our work with constant interruptions and task
switches. Imagine an interface that helps you maintain task focus, keep up
to date with changes in secondary tasks, and smoothly transition between
tasks. Glanceable peripheral displays can help with these needs by enabling
users to quickly and easily monitor updates in various tasks. However,
little is known about how to best design visual information to improve user
experience and performance in multitasking situations. To address this
question, I will present three experiments that study design characteristics
of glanceable peripheral displays used while multitasking. In the first
experiment, we compared the effects of different abstraction techniques used
in peripheral displays on multitasking efficiency. In the second and third
dual-task experiments, we compared the interpretability, recognizability,
and user opinions of a wide range of renditions (from colored squares to
photographs), inspired by existing displays. We also investigated how
recognizable renditions are together in cohesive sets, and how this changed
with different set sizes. The main contributions are best practices for the
design and evaluation of glanceable peripheral displays, intended to help
designers create better displays to support multitasking.
Tara Matthews is a Ph.D. Candidate in Electrical Engineering and Computer
Science (EECS) at the University of California at Berkeley. She earned her
B.S. from Seattle University and her M.S. in Computer Science from the
University of California at Berkeley. Her research focuses on visualization
techniques to improve user experience and efficiency while multitasking.
Application areas include peripheral displays, task management systems, and
information awareness applications for mobile and Ubicomp settings.
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