July 2021 - July 2022
UX Research
UX Researcher
Interview / Diary study / Analysis
Past research seen notifications as a disturbance, intrusion, or interruptions, and there were addiction debates on the situation of notification overloading and technology overuse.Some of research arguing the notifications should delay to an opportune moments. However, while the focus mode, which means to delay notifications, in mobile system do exists for years, it can’t stop people from self-interrupting themselves to check certain notifications. It means that there exists some intents make people want to interact with notifications in a primary task, and we suggest the definition of “what is opportune moment” should also consider the intents that makes people multitask.
In our research, we dig into the qualitative meanings that people interacts with notifications in different time, and their sense-making decision. We conducted 7-days diary studies and in-depth interviews for 30 participants, trying to investigate about the reason why they want to multitask to read notifications while they are in a primary task, and what they are trying to achieve.
In fact, as the genres of notifications has growth, the function of notifications has changed, too. People are not just seen notifications as disturbance, but about seeking stimulation, be productive, and many usages lying behind.
And we discovered that besides multitasking to interact with notifications, the behavior to interact with notifications before entering a task is also another noticeable pattern. And we also dig into the underlying reasons.
Understand the past literature insights about the design of notification system.
- Literature review
- Review the notification design guideline currently use.
Based on the past literature insights and conducted diary and user interviews to understand users' behavior with notifications.
- Diary
- Post-interview
Analysis the qualitative result and find out WHY people multitask and WHAT they want to achieve.
- Grounded theory
Develop possible design suggestion and guideline.
Participants began with a survey covering:
1. general demographics, 2. the level of their technique proficiency, 3. the level of business
4. the level of polychronicity
5. the level of their self-awareness of multitasking
6. the type of devices they owned.
Participants were asked to prompt contextual explanations about :
their general lifestyle, and habits, including notification management and retrieval strategies.
Starting the day after the first interview, participants were then asked to diarise for a week their activities and the activities related to notifications and multitasking behavior.
The purpose of this interview was to walk the researcher through each diary entry, in order to provide more details and more contextual explanations, building on the in-depth data collection.
We analysis:
interview transcripts, diary entries, and photographs
We conducted thematic analysis of our interviews using Atlas.ti software. Open and axial coding was used to define themes, which were then discussed amongst all authors.
The Changing Face of Travel
- The beach is best for most travellers, with 74% of respondents preferring to spend their vacations on the coast
- 83% simply prefer to be near water—whether the ocean or a lake
- 51% and 35% prefer mountainous and city vacations, respectively
- Millennials have expensive tastes—12% plan to stay in a villa/estate in the next year vs. only 6% of Boomers and 9% of Gen Xers
source: Cision PR News wire (http://www.prnewswire.com) Date: Feb 22, 2017
In order to cope with the distraction, some mobile users disable audio alerts (Nield, 2018).
- Apple, for instance, launched a “Do not disturb” function (“Use Do Not Disturb on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch”, 2019), whereby all calls, alerts and notifications would be silenced when the device is locked.
- Android and Google have introduced similar functions on their devices. These “Do not disturb” functions are seen by many as a potential solution to the constant buzz and rings coming from our phones, and even to curb mobile phone addiction (Jolly, 2019).
We recruit participants via questionnaire on the social media, and it ends up generate three Persona which is consistent with our market teams' report. The Persona and the insight not only help us understand users, but also make sure our product goals between design and marketing team are consistent, too.
The demographic in our recruiting questionnaire.
We recruit participants via questionnaire on the social media, and it ends up generate three Persona which is consistent with our market teams' report. The Persona and the insight not only help us understand users, but also make sure our product goals between design and marketing team are consistent, too.
We recruit participants via questionnaire on the social media, and it ends up generate three Persona which is consistent with our market teams' report. The Persona and the insight not only help us understand users, but also make sure our product goals between design and marketing team are consistent, too.
We conducted thematic analysis of our interviews using Atlas.ti software. Generation of the initial codebook was guided by our interview protocol, and focused on participants’ IM practices, response decisions, and response behaviors.
Based on the Persona and Survey, we develop three core function to reach the must have goal in our MVP.
In the questionnaire, we understand the must have function will related to the pain point below:
1. Time consuming searching across many sites
2. No easy way to direct compare price
3. No flexible date searching/ calendar search does not fit for purpose
4. Poor filter options or does not fit for purpose
In the questionnaire, we understand the must have function will related to the pain point below:
1. Time consuming searching across many sites
2. No easy way to direct compare price
3. No flexible date searching/ calendar search does not fit for purpose
4. Poor filter options or does not fit for purpose
In the questionnaire, we understand the must have function will related to the pain point below:
1. Time consuming searching across many sites
2. No easy way to direct compare price
3. No flexible date searching/ calendar search does not fit for purpose
4. Poor filter options or does not fit for purpose
In the questionnaire, we understand the must have function will related to the pain point below:
1. Time consuming searching across many sites
2. No easy way to direct compare price
3. No flexible date searching/ calendar search does not fit for purpose
4. Poor filter options or does not fit for purpose
After release to the pilot group, we asked them to do a quick survey.
The feedback was positive and looking forwards to an upgrade version of more features.
Although we having a successful result in the pilot run in the alpha version, we need to find a good timing to launch our beta version service due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
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