Posters

UIST’13, October 8–11, 2013, St. Andrews, UK

Shape Changing Device for Notification
Seiji Yamada
National Institute of Informactics / Sokendai
Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda, Tokyo 101-8430, Japane-mail seiji@nii.ac.jp

Kazuki Kobayashi
Shinshu University
4-17-1 Wakasato, Nagano 380-8553, Japan
kby@shinshu-u.ac.jp
ABSTRACTIn this paper, we describe a notificatio method with peripheral cognition technology that uses a human cognitive characteristic. The method achieves notificatio without interrupting users’ primary tasks. We developed a shape changing
device that change its shape to notify the arrival of information. Such behavior enables a user to easily fin and accept
notification without interruption when their attention on theprimary task decreases. The result of an experiment showedthat the successful notificatio rate was 45.5%.
Author Keywords

Peripheral Cognition Technologies; notification
ACM Classificatio Keywords

H.5.2. [Information Interfaces and Presentation]: User Interfaces - Theory and methods;
INTRODUCTION

Figure 1. Shape changing behavior.

There are many digital devices such as smart phones andtablet PCs that notify us of fresh information. However, frequent notificatio often breaks users’ attention and interrupts
their work. Various studies have been done for this problem. One approach with a user model [1] collects sensor dataand estimates the user’s interruptibility, and another approachwithout a user model develops effective visual notificationthat adjust the levels of interruption by using a transitional
illustration [2] and an animated picture [3].

SHAPE CHANGING DEVICE

We propose a shape changing device that notifie users of thearrival of new information as an application of PCT. The device slowly and quietly changes its shape. The basic ideaof the method is based on the human cognitive characteristics of narrowing the peripheral vision fiel when concentrating on a certain target (visual fiel narrowing) and having
difficult with detecting subtle changes in a target (changeblindness). The designed changing behavior is too slow andquiet for users to notice the movements. Information notifica
tion is achieved when users happen to see that the device haschanged its shape when their concentration level on a target
naturally decreases.

We propose a notificatio method with peripheral cognition
technology (PCT) [5] that uses a human cognitive characteristic called visual fiel narrowing[4]. The method achieves
notificatio without interrupting the task that a user is engaging in. We developed a shape changing device based on PCT
that slowly changes its shape to notify of the arrival of information. The behavior of the device enables a user to maintainattention on his or her work and to accept notification without interruption when his or her attention on a task decreases
because the device can move itself quietly and without causing a distraction. Furthermore we conduct preliminary experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the notificatio methodwith the shape changing device.

In our research, smart phones are assumed as the notificatiodevice. We developed a device that notifie users of delivered
information without interrupting them. The developed shapechanging device un-intrusively alters its shape by making thesmart phone stand up, making it is easy for users to notice thechange.
Figure 1 shows the shape changing behavior. The devicechanges its shape when it obtains information from e-mailclients, Twitter, Facebook, RSS, etc. First, it softly opens theupper cover and then slowly raises the smart phone ((2)-(4)in Figure 1). Designing the behavior of this shape changing
requires setting motor control parameters such as the moving
speed and intervals so that users do not notice the changing
actually taking place. The device needs to be located in thePermission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal orclassroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributedfor profi or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the firs page. Copyrights for third-party components of this work must behonored. For all other uses, contact the owner/author(s). Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
UIST’13 Adjunct, October 8–11, 2013, St. Andrews, United Kingdom.
ACM 978-1-4503-2406-9/13/10.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2508468.2514715

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Posters

UIST’13, October 8–11, 2013, St. Andrews, UK

side area to a display as a user’s peripheral area when he or
she does desk work with a PC.

PCT Experiment

PCT Experiment
Timing:I noticed it just now.

SIMPLE USER STUDY AND DISCUSSION

I already noticed it before.

We conducted a simple user study for two weeks. It was completely exploratory research done by one person who used thedevice for about two weeks in a real situation at his office
Figure 2 shows the experimental environment. He spent mostof his time at his desk but often left the desk. The device informed him of the arrival of information we sent that was designed to be like the typical information sent to smart phones
by changing its shape to raise the smart phone within random
intervals (between one to thirty minutes). He answered a brief
questionnaire whenever he noticed a notification The questionnaire was displayed on the smart phone (Figure 3), and hedirectly selected the items by touch.

I just remembered the last one.

I noticed as returned to my desk.
No special reason.

SubmitFigure 3.
Questionnaire
page on a smart phone.

I noticed it justnow without
special reason45%

I suspended my work.

I have noticed
it before
6% I suspended
my work

20%

Figure 4. Results of questionnaires.

kept the number of times the user was interrupted from beingexcessive. However, since we used notification we created,
the user’s behavior might have been influence as a result. It
is preferable to increase the received rate and to investigate
realistic phenomenon more in depth.
Although there are many alternatives for the notification theproposed method changed the position of the smart phone.
Notificatio can be achieved without raising the smart phone,
but the advantage of raising it is to make it easier to operate
the phone by picking it up. It is common for users to use theirphone after they have accepted a notification

The results of the questionnaire are shown in Figure 4. In total, he answered the questionnaire 97 times within a certain
time frame. The successful notificatio rate, selected with “I
noticed it just now for no special reason,” was 45.5% (44/97).
The semi-successful notificatio rate, selected with “I noticed
when I returned to my desk,” was 29% (28/97). The intrusive
notificatio rate, selected with “I suspended my work,” was
19.6% (19/97). The neglected notificatio rate, selected with
“I noticed it before,” was 6.2% (6/97). The notificatio received rate was 37.9%.

CONCLUSION

In this paper, we proposed a notificatio method with PCT
that uses the human cognitive characteristic of visual fielnarrowing. The proposed method can achieve notificatiowithout interrupting the user’s primary task that he or she
is engaging in. We developed a shape changing device thatchanges its shape to notify of the arrival of information. Suchbehavior enables a user to easily fin and accept notification
without interruption when their attention on a primary task
decreases. We conducted a simple user study in a realistic
offic environment. The experimental results support the effectiveness of our method with the promising successful notificatio rate.

The experimental results showed that the number of successful notification was 44 times, which exceeded that of the
intrusive notification However, there is still room for improvement because the success rate was less than 50%. The
reason for this result was that the participant answered that
he noticed the sound of the motor in the device. Decreasing the motor sound is one problem to solve because he delayed responding to the device only six times when hearing
the sound. The participant noticed the notificatio when hereturned from being away from his desk 28 times. This suggests that the shape changing device is useful for work inwhich the worker leaves and returns to his desk multiple times
throughout the day.

REFERENCES

1. Horvitz, E., and Apacible, J. Learning and reasoning
about interruption. In ICMI’03 (2003), 20–27.
2. Kim, T., Hong, H., and Magerko, B. Design requirements
for ambient display that supports sustainable lifestyle. In
DIS’10 (2010), 103–112.

The notificatio received rate was less than 40%. This result
is not surprising because the proposed method contributed

3. McCrickard, D. S., Catrambone, R., and Stasko, J. T.
Evaluating animation in the periphery as a mechanism formaintaining awareness. In INTERACT’01 (2001),
148–156.

45cm

User

29%

Situation:

We evaluated the proposed method on the basis of the questionnaire results. The evaluation indexes consisted of the successful notificatio rate, the semi-successful notificatio rate,
the intrusive notificatio rate, the neglected notificatio rate,
and the notificatio received rate.

Display

I noticed whenI return my room

4. Williams, L. Peripheral target recognition and visual fielnarrowing in aviators and nonaviators. International
journal of aviation psychology (1995).

Shape Shifting Device

5. Yamada, S., Kobayashi, K., and Mori, N. Peripheral
cognition technology: Approach and implementation. In
iHAI’12 (2012), TW8 0001.

Desk
Figure 2. Experimental environment.

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