Scope: Providing Awareness of Multiple Notifications at a Glance

1. Scope: Providing Awareness of Multiple Notifications at a Glance Maarten van Dantzich, Daniel Robbins, Eric Horvitz, Mary Czerwinski Microsoft Research Scope – Microsoft Research

2. Notification Overload Scope – Microsoft Research

3. “Show me all the important new stuff without bothering me too much.” Scope – Microsoft Research

4. The Scope Scope – Microsoft Research

5. Scope Goals • Glanceable: need only a quick look • Unified: all notifications in one place • Unobtrusive: minimize distractions • Lightweight: assisted prioritization Scope – Microsoft Research

6. Desktop Video Scope – Microsoft Research

7. Learning From Email Workflow* • Flow: unobtrusively show newly arriving notifications • Triage: show all the notifications that have arrived since the last time the user attended to the Scope • Task management: let users edit metadata • Archive: Let users keep items on the scope • Retrieve: Let the user easily see summary info about a particular notification AND quickly access the original item *Thanks to Gina Venolia Scope – Microsoft Research

8. Information Sources (Current) • Email (Outlook) • Calendar Appointments (Outlook) • Tasks (Outlook) • Web Alerts (Custom) • News, stock-alerts, weather, traffic Prioritized by Notification Platform Scope – Microsoft Research

9. Basic Design User is at center of Scope Items “closer to the user” are are more important to the user LESS Urgent Inbox Alerts MORE Urgent Tasks Notification Item with visuals for metadata Calendar Scope – Microsoft Research

10. Demo • scope_geometries_01.html Scope – Microsoft Research

11. Feature Overview • Levels of Detail • Wedge Expansion • Filtering • Lens • Top N list • Single-item list • Rich tooltips • Inspector Scope – Microsoft Research

12. LOD: Glance  Interrogate Scope – Microsoft Research

13. Wedge Expansion Show more of each item Show more items (of lower priority) Scope – Microsoft Research

14. Filtering Show only email No Filter Scope – Microsoft Research

15. Lens Scope – Microsoft Research

16. Multi-list (top N items near cursor) Top-N-list (top N items from entire scope) Single-item list (more info about item under cursor) Lists Scope – Microsoft Research

17. Rich Tooltips Alerts Email Todo Calendar Scope – Microsoft Research

18. Inspector • Appears when user double-clicks on an item • Clicking on button within Inspector opens source document in native application Scope – Microsoft Research

19. So Why Did We Make It This Way? Scope – Microsoft Research

20. Feedback Channels Available • Sound • Color • Animation • Position, shape • Position • Shape Scope – Microsoft Research

21. Interaction Channels Available • Hover • Click • Double-click • Drag-and-drop • Zooming • Lens Scope – Microsoft Research

22. But: Design Challenges • Alert the user without distracting the user • Pop-out for urgent, new, & overdue items • Distinguishable visuals (at all sizes) • High contrast between item & background • Contrast between wedges • Usable in grayscale • Boolean states for many properties • vs. many states for few properties • Use as few different icons as possible Scope – Microsoft Research

23. Design Evolution Analysis • Pretty (“candy drop”) Clean (“flat”) • Complex  Simple • Representational  Iconic  Abstract • Animated  Static • Minimize distractions • Minimize visual noise • Usable at small sizes Scope – Microsoft Research

24. Tangibility Flat: less visual noise Pretty: “candy drop” & tangible Scope – Microsoft Research

25. E E Evolution of MetaData Visuals • Complex • Representational • Simple • Abstract Symbols for metadata and position for type Rich icons for state and type alpha-numeric for type and symbols for metadata Rich icons for metadata Scope – Microsoft Research

26. Item Design Elements (Email) Scope – Microsoft Research

27. Item Design Composition Scope – Microsoft Research

28. Why Show Visuals For Metadata? If auto-prioritization works, aren’t visuals redundant? • Items are more distinguishable/identifiable • Builds user’s trust in system’s intelligence • Users feel in control • Edit priority and type by dragging items Scope – Microsoft Research

29. Overall Design Refinement Scope – Microsoft Research

30. Color vs. Grayscale Scope – Microsoft Research

31. User Studies Scope – Microsoft Research

32. User Studies Tasks (Sample) • Determine which items are of high urgency and which are lower • Find an unread email of high urgency that was sent only to you, from a known contact • Find meetings that are not close to your office • Use filters to show only email messages that were sent specifically to you • Read a high urgency email sent only to you Scope – Microsoft Research

33. User Study Results • Visuals were learnable within an hour • Spatial coding of urgency is unfamiliar • Finding a high-urgency email • Beginning of session = 2:34 • End of session = 00:34 (find, read, & close) • Animation too distracting • Liked idea of trainable reasoning Scope – Microsoft Research

34. Implementation • Visual Interface: Macromedia Flash • Scalable vector graphics • Fluid animation • Fast, iterative authoring, rapid-prototyping • Supporting system and shell: Visual Basic • Talks to Microsoft Exchange/Outlook • MAPI, CDO interfaces in VB • XML communication between Flash and VB • Prioritization via Notification Platform Scope – Microsoft Research

35. Future Directions Scope – Microsoft Research

36. Alerts News Other Inbox Work Friends Hobbies Co-workers Calendar Family Family Tasks Different Wedge Semantics Scope – Microsoft Research

37. Dynamic Wedge Proportions Alerts Inbox Inbox Alerts Tasks Calendar Tasks Calendar Scope – Microsoft Research

38. Center vs. Edge Centric Most important items near perimeter Most important items near center Look in one place for important stuff More room for the important stuff Scope – Microsoft Research

39. Warped Wedges: More Space for the Most Important Items Scope – Microsoft Research

40. Fins: Showing More Items Scope – Microsoft Research

41. 3D Scope – Microsoft Research

42. Other Form Factors Scope – Microsoft Research

43. PDA Scope – Microsoft Research

44. PDA Video Scope – Microsoft Research

45. Adapting Design to a PDA • No hover  overloaded click • No double-click  press-and-hold • Much slower CPU  Simpler visuals Scope – Microsoft Research

46. Watch Form Factor Scope – Microsoft Research

47. The Scope: Conclusions • Manages multiple notification streams • Glanceable • Learnable • Sensitive/subtle design space • Adaptable to many platforms Scope – Microsoft Research

48. End Scope – Microsoft Research

49. Notification Platform • Newness • Item Type • Due date • Recipient • Key words • Usage for similar items Scope – Microsoft Research

50. Email Workflow* • Flow: As people are working on other tasks, they want to keep up with the flow of incoming messages as they arrive. • Triage: After people are away from their email for a period of time, they need to catch up and deal with all the email that accumulated while they were away. • Task management: People often use email to remind them what they need to do, and to help them get tasks done. • Archive: People store email so they can refer to it later. • Retrieve: After archiving messages, people need a method of retrieving messages. *Thanks to Gina Venolia Scope – Microsoft Research