Improving IM Collaboration in the Workplace

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Improving IM Collaboration in the Workplace

• Kirstin Williams
• COMP 790-063

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FTF Interactions

• Visual awareness of targets presence
• Visual awareness of targets workload
• Shared sense of value of interruption
• Immediate sense of response urgency and time
  demand

• Can be intrusive
• Unwanted prolonged discussions
• No multitasking
• Greater time demands

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IM Collaboration

• Less intrusive
• Multitasking
• Quick and spontaneous with little additional
  effort
• 140M plus users

• Social Play?

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IM in the Workplace

• Are people actually using IM for work??

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ATT Research Study

• 437 participants
• Used client for at least a week
• Spanned 16 months
• Chat content analysis
• Most users at work

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Nature of IM at Work

• Simple info exchange
• 91.4 work-related
• Scheduling
• 85.7 work-related
• No Response
• Reminders
• Work is largest category
• 60 of conversations

Figure published in The Character, Functions,
and Styles of Instant Messaging in the Workplace
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Nature of IM at Work

• Work
• Work Talk
• Work-Related Talk
• Doing Work

Figures published in The Character, Functions,
and Styles of Instant Messaging in the Workplace
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IM in the Workplace

• Are people taking advantage of the ability to
  perform multiple tasks?

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Multitasking

• 86 of all users multitasked
• Analyzed focus switching
• Once every 70 seconds!!
• Activity not from multiple conversations
• 77 never had overlapping conversations

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IM in the Workplace

• Does IM create unwanted interruptions and affect
  productivity?

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Effects of Interruption

• Helper
• Saves jumpers
• Sees image
• Seeker
• Sees pieces of image
• Asks 20 ?s
• More jumpers saved with less interruptions

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IM in the Workplace

• How can we control IM interruptions?

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Current Control Methods

• Toggle Device Status
• May forget to turn off
• May forget to turn back on
• Screen Incoming Messages
• Negative social dynamic
• Time spent assessing each message
• Away Status
• Forget to set
• Miss valuable messages
• Proactive Management
• Forget to switch between accounts

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Traditional IM Client

• Sounds for incoming/outgoing message
• Indicator of away/available
• Hover produces idle time
• Focus indicator

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ATTs Hubbub

• Individual Sound ID
• Location of user

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IM in the Workplace

• Can we improve IM to make a seeker aware of a
  targets presence?

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Awarenex

• Logs location
• Tracks online calendar
• Observes e-mail activity
• Updates every minute
• Presents seeker with visualization of helpers
  activity

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Awarenex Actogram
Figure published in Work Rhythms Analyzing
Visualizations of Awareness Histories of
Distributed Groups

• Displays start, stop, and lunch trends
• Can display daily trends and reoccurring meetings
• Makes a seeker aware of the targets trends in
  presence
• Can augment with Horvitzs work on return
  prediction
• Target may be reachable, but not receptive

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Lilsys

• Presence data
• Availability detection
• Sound
• Phone
• Door
• Vague status displays
• Plausible deniability
• No feedback about willingness to receive a
  disruption

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Notification Platform

• Seeker provided with video sequence of targets
  activity
• Target can annotate video with busy times
• Compromising privacy!

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BusyBody Status

• Training phase with busy palette

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BusyBody COI

• Assess probability helper is in state S
• Train Bayesian Network
• Build case library
• Evaluate Expected Cost of Interruption
• Display cost to seeker
• Start to infer willingness to
  receive an interruption

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IM in the Workplace

• Will a seeker pay attention to the information
  presented to them in an awareness display about
  the targets presence and availability?

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Motivation to Heed Awareness Display

• Awareness Display
• None
• Abstract
• Full
• Motivation
• Team
• Individual

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Performance Improved!

• Helper saves more jumpers
• Seeker more motivated
• Seeker more aware
• Helper given control

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IM in the Workplace

• How can we enable the target to help their
  performance even when seeker disregards awareness
  displays?

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QnA

• Relates to Winograds Action Workflow
• Question and Answers are adjacency pairs
• Questions often require a quick response
• When you send a question, you are often awaiting
  a response
• Help target filter messages by alerting them of
  questions and answers

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QnA

• Question matched with strings
• Use ExpectingResponse if target just sent a
  question
• Use IncomingQuestion if target receives a
  question
• Response if adjacent to question
• Use IncomingResponse if a message is received and
  ExpectingResponse is set
• Notify user
• Can extend this concept with Horvitzs
  prioritizing work

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The Ultimate IM

• Detect presence
• Monitor our social interaction
• Assess our cost of interruption
• Enable us as a target

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Summary

• IM in the workplace
• IM as a distraction
• Traditional disruption control methods
• New approaches to control messages
• Seekers motivation
• The Ultimate IM Tool

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Questions??
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IM Statistics

• Heavy users
• More short turns
• More threading
• Fewer conversation closings
• More likely to allow interruptions
• Light users
• Longer duration
• Less threading
• Quicker 1st message response time

Figure published in The Character, Functions,
and Styles of Instant Messaging in the Workplace
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Controlling Interruption

• Helper saves more jumpers
• Seeker more motivated
• Seeker more aware
• Helper given control
• Display results
• No display no awareness
• Abstract Display good awareness
• Full Display too busy