research-article

The influence of concurrent mobile notifications on individual responses

Authors:

Liam D. Turner,

Stuart M. Allen,

Roger M. WhitakerAuthors Info & Claims

Volume 132, Issue C

Pages 70 - 80

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2019.07.011

Published: 01 December 2019 Publication History

Highlights

•

Mobile notifications frequently build-up into diverse stacks for the user to review.

•

Notification arrivals can trigger responses to those already in the stack.

•

Stack size and notification position can negatively influence the response process.

•

Notification management can prolong the end of device usage.

•

Interruption policies do not always reflect response behaviour.

Abstract

Notifications on mobile devices punctuate our daily lives to provide information and prompt for further engagement. Investigations into the cognitive processes involved in consuming notifications are common across the literature, however most research to date investigates notifications in isolation of one another. In reality, notifications often coexist together, forming a “stack”, however the behavioural implications of this on the response towards individual notifications has received limited attention. Through an in-the-wild study of 1889 Android devices, we observe user behaviour in a stream of 30 million notifications from over 6000 applications. We find distinct strategies for user management of the notification stack within usage sessions, beyond the behaviour patterns observable from responses to individual notifications. From the analysis, we make recommendations for collecting and reporting data from mobile applications to improve validity through timely responses, and capture potential confounding features.

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Cited By

Li THaines JDe Eguino MHong JNichols J(2023)Alert Now or Never: Understanding and Predicting Notification Preferences of Smartphone UsersACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/347886829:5(1-33)Online publication date: 6-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478868
Encarnação JVelhinho ABentes SSilva TSantos RSalgado RAfonso F(2023)A management system to personalize notifications in the TV ecosystemProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2023.01.338219:C(674-679)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.procs.2023.01.338
Lin TSu YYang EChen YLee HChang YKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)“Put it on the Top, I’ll Read it Later”: Investigating Users’ Desired Display Order for Smartphone NotificationsProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445384(1-13)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445384
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Index Terms

The influence of concurrent mobile notifications on individual responses
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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Information & Contributors

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Published In

cover image International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies Volume 132, Issue C

Dec 2019

162 pages

ISSN:1071-5819

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Elsevier Ltd.

Publisher

Academic Press, Inc.

United States

Publication History

Published: 01 December 2019

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Cited By

Li THaines JDe Eguino MHong JNichols J(2023)Alert Now or Never: Understanding and Predicting Notification Preferences of Smartphone UsersACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/347886829:5(1-33)Online publication date: 6-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3478868
Encarnação JVelhinho ABentes SSilva TSantos RSalgado RAfonso F(2023)A management system to personalize notifications in the TV ecosystemProcedia Computer Science10.1016/j.procs.2023.01.338219:C(674-679)Online publication date: 1-Jan-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.procs.2023.01.338
Lin TSu YYang EChen YLee HChang YKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)“Put it on the Top, I’ll Read it Later”: Investigating Users’ Desired Display Order for Smartphone NotificationsProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445384(1-13)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445384
Lin TSu YYang EChen YLee HChang YTentori MWeibel NVan Laerhoven KAbowd GSalim F(2020)A preliminary investigation of the mismatch between attendance order and desired display order of smartphone notificationsAdjunct Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2020 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers10.1145/3410530.3414384(71-74)Online publication date: 10-Sep-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3410530.3414384

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