research-article

Characterizing the Mobile Microtask Writing Process

Authors:

Michael Gamon, and

Mark EncarnaciónAuthors Info & Claims

MobileHCI '20: 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services

October 2020

Article No.: 26, Pages 1 - 12

https://doi.org/10.1145/3379503.3403541

Published: 05 October 2020 Publication History

Abstract

The unique limitations of mobile environments make content creation and editing difficult. Microtasking—breaking down complex tasks into subtasks—requires shorter attention spans and quick interactions, making it suitable for mobile usage scenarios. Writing is an ideal process for mobile microtasking because of its many subgoals, but little is known about how writers can use this decomposition through the evolution of a document. In this paper we present findings from a controlled, week long study to characterize how writers use mobile microtasks while authoring a document. We found that writers created microtasks for editing and inserting information that generally required minimal writing. These tasks were especially well suited for mobile devices with writers completing tasks on commutes or while waiting for meetings. Writers who microtasked found it easy to interact with their document and complete tasks, writing and editing their document more overall compared to writers who instead edited their document directly on their phone.

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Cited By

Sharma AIvanov ALai FGrossman TSantosa S(2024)GraspUI: Seamlessly Integrating Object-Centric Gestures within the Seven Phases of GraspingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661551(1275-1289)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661551
Zheng JGao G(2024)Fragmented Moments, Balanced Choices: How Do People Make Use of Their Waiting Time?Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642608(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642608
Aragon-Hahner SKörber JSchneller MStrickroth S(2023)FindMyself: A Mobile Self-Reflection App to Support Students in Career Decision-MakingProceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3626705.3627774(463-476)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626705.3627774
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Index Terms

Characterizing the Mobile Microtask Writing Process
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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

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cover image ACM Conferences

MobileHCI '20: 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services

October 2020

418 pages

ISBN:9781450375160

DOI:10.1145/3379503

Copyright © 2020 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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Published: 05 October 2020

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MobileHCI '20: 22nd International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services

October 5 - 8, 2020

Oldenburg, Germany

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Cited By

Sharma AIvanov ALai FGrossman TSantosa S(2024)GraspUI: Seamlessly Integrating Object-Centric Gestures within the Seven Phases of GraspingProceedings of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference10.1145/3643834.3661551(1275-1289)Online publication date: 1-Jul-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643834.3661551
Zheng JGao G(2024)Fragmented Moments, Balanced Choices: How Do People Make Use of Their Waiting Time?Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642608(1-14)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642608
Aragon-Hahner SKörber JSchneller MStrickroth S(2023)FindMyself: A Mobile Self-Reflection App to Support Students in Career Decision-MakingProceedings of the 22nd International Conference on Mobile and Ubiquitous Multimedia10.1145/3626705.3627774(463-476)Online publication date: 3-Dec-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3626705.3627774
Rudnicka ACook DCecchinato MGould SNewbold JCox A(2022)The end of the active work break? Remote work, sedentariness and the role of technology in creating active break-taking normsProceedings of the 1st Annual Meeting of the Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction for Work10.1145/3533406.3533409(1-13)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3533406.3533409
Swearngin AIqbal SPoznanski VEncarnación MBennett PTeevan JKitamura YQuigley AIsbister KIgarashi TBjørn PDrucker S(2021)Scraps: Enabling Mobile Capture, Contextualization, and Use of Document ResourcesProceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3411764.3445185(1-14)Online publication date: 6-May-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3411764.3445185

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