Mobile Users Are More Vigilant Than Situated Users

摘要

With the rapid growth of mobile device usage, daily life offers much empirical evidence that users frequently and persistently interact with mobile devices while doing other things. These users might be highly engaged within a mobile experience or unfulfilled by their real world experience; but significantly, their frequent usage could also be a form of vigilant behavior. This research seeks to understand whether or not mobile usage leads to an increased prevalence of user vigilance, first by establishing criteria that can be used to determine if a specific session of use is vigilant, and then applying these criteria to analyze observed sessions of use for two distinct cohorts: mobile users and situated users. In the analysis, it was found that everyday vigilant usage scenarios are fairly prevalent, and also that mobile users were 3 times more vigilant than situated users. These initial findings need further validation, but may prove significant to interaction design: optimizing a software interface to better support vigilant usage requires an opposing set of considerations when compared to traditional consumer product design. These design considerations are discussed, in addition to the limitations of the study, and guidance for future work.