Tara Lynn Matthews and Devin Blais and Aubrey Shick and Jennifer Mankoff and Jodi Forlizzi and Stacie Rohrbach and Roberta Klatzky

EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley

Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2006-173

December 13, 2006

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-173.pdf

Glanceable visuals enable quick and easy visual informa-tion uptake, thus enabling users to monitor secondary tasks while they multitask or divide attention. However, little is known about how to best design visual information for di-vided attention situations. We present two experiments to address this question, which differ from past work in three ways: (1) We study information uptake speed for peripheral displays in dual-task situations; (2) we examine a wide range of renditions (graphic objects or text) inspired by existing displays, differing in both visual complexity and the degree to which they convey common meanings; and (3) we investigate how recognizable renditions are together as a set, and how this changes with different set sizes. Our main contributions are best practices for the design and evaluation of glanceable visuals, intended to help designers create better peripheral displays to support multitasking.

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BibTeX citation:

@techreport{Matthews:EECS-2006-173,
    Author= {Matthews, Tara Lynn and Blais, Devin and Shick, Aubrey and Mankoff, Jennifer and Forlizzi, Jodi and Rohrbach, Stacie and Klatzky, Roberta},
    Title= {Evaluating Glanceable Visuals for Multitasking},
    Year= {2006},
    Month= {Dec},
    Url= {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-173.html},
    Number= {UCB/EECS-2006-173},
    Abstract= {Glanceable visuals enable quick and easy visual informa-tion uptake, thus enabling users to monitor secondary tasks while they multitask or divide attention. However, little is known about how to best design visual information for di-vided attention situations. We present two experiments to address this question, which differ from past work in three ways: (1) We study information uptake speed for peripheral displays in dual-task situations; (2) we examine a wide range of renditions (graphic objects or text) inspired by existing displays, differing in both visual complexity and the degree to which they convey common meanings; and (3) we investigate how recognizable renditions are together as a set, and how this changes with different set sizes. Our main contributions are best practices for the design and evaluation of glanceable visuals, intended to help designers create better peripheral displays to support multitasking.},
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Report
%A Matthews, Tara Lynn 
%A Blais, Devin 
%A Shick, Aubrey 
%A Mankoff, Jennifer 
%A Forlizzi, Jodi 
%A Rohrbach, Stacie 
%A Klatzky, Roberta 
%T Evaluating Glanceable Visuals for Multitasking
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 2006
%8 December 13
%@ UCB/EECS-2006-173
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2006/EECS-2006-173.html
%F Matthews:EECS-2006-173