Attention Sensitive User Interface

griffjon writes "The NYT (lame free reg blah blah) is running an article on Microsoft research into an attention-oriented UI that will use cameras and mics as well as software to monitor where a user's attention is focused and query other software (like e-mail notification, IM, etc.) to keep it from interrupting their chain of thought." This strikes me as being a really cool idea if properly implemented. Even simple things like not letting your biff update until you change focus out of a word processor. (mind you the anti-MS block on Slashdot will of course equate Microsoft's involvement with the project to mean that this is really about mind control or the corporately financed return of the plague, but what are ya gonna do?)

Comments

Stare ....

[HiQ]

So now the system will actually *know* when I'm staring that stupid paperclip to death; I hope they will implement a new feature: when you stare madly at the paperclip, it will catch fire, and will be reduced to a pile of ashes! Kewl!
How to make a sig
without having an idea

Heh

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

So kids with Attention Deficit Disorder AND Automatic Power Management are going to have their computers shutdown on them every 10 seconds...

Seriously, this sounds neat--if it works. But I can imagine new programs trying to compete for my attention by flashing, show nudie photos, or whatever in an attempt to boost a Nielsen-style rating.
--

But I WANT to be distracted!

[(void*)]

I want to know when email comes, even in the heavy midst of coding, becuase it could be email from my wife. I want IM to tell me when the boss logs on, becuase I have Important Stuff I wish to report to him.

Why is MS always thinking about "how cool this ..." or "how cool that ...". Don't they realize that many of this is just straitjacketing people into one set of actions or options? Perhaps a droid might like it, but I am not a droid. I am a human being with priorities that cannot be turned into a well-ordered list.

Re:Just try and implment this

[fiziko]

Ever gotten into a fight with Microsoft Word over some formating issues? It can be dang near impossible to get it to do what you want because it is being so helpful.

That's why I switched to LaTeX. Well, first I switched to StarOffice for the equation editor, and then I switched to LaTeX for the excellent cross-referencing, table of contents generation, and damn near everything else Word wouldn't get right the first half a dozen times I tried. God, Word's automatic outline generator? I still haven't figured out how to keep the numbering accurate automatically when I change the document. Maybe there's a way, but I never found it. LaTeX is, in my opinion, a far superior product, with much lower system requirements. It's basically a markup language, but anyone with a modest combination of IQ and HTML (eg) experience should be able to pick it up in under half a day.

What about Outlook viruses?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

So what if I'm using Outlook? A mail comes in, I glance at Outlook--it opens the mail. It has an attachment, I look at the filename--it launches. Oh no! A virus! Don't infect Word (glance at Word). Crap! Don't send to the people in my address book (glance). Dammit!

There are times when you want to study something passively...
--

They already do this

[cs668]

and.... It sucks.

The menus in office 2000 apps already try to guess what you want to do. They are always moving menu entries arround based on what you are doing.

The end result is that you always have to read the pull-down menu -- you can never learn the position of a selection.

So by trying to anticipate what you want they make you less effecient. Wouldn't this just be more of the same?

IBM as well

[jonathanclark]

I went by the IBM software research labs here in San Jose and got see some neat demo of exactly this (attention sensitive UI).

The nice thing about this is that eye tracking is very cheap. The eye reflects IR very well so all you need is an IR strobe and a cheap IR CCD. An end product could cost less than $50.

One demo allowed you to speed up mouse click on things by automatically moving the mouse to an approximate location on the screen where you are looking.

They had one demo that would track your eye and blur the screen except for where the eye was focused. Everyone else sees a blurry screen, but you (the person being tracked) can't see a difference. Could be very cool in 3d games if the game could render the areas of the screen you were looking at in more detail and those you weren't in less detail. The military has been experimenting with this on high-end flight sims that do this with good success. But if your playing on a 13" monitor then pretty much everything is in focus. :)

Checkout their project page for a little for info.

http://www.almaden.ibm.com/cs/blueeyes/

--

Badly-behaved software: Attentions & distractions

[tjwhaynes]

The problem with a lot of the software I see around today is that in the desire to make software more open and friendly, it has got a lot more distracting to use. It's difficult to Zen-out when using a piece of software when every minor adjustment triggers an animated effect, be it a spinning hour glass, back illuminated button or piece of paper flying across the screen. In an attempt to give the user more feedback about what is active and what is not, software designers have taken away the "quiet" interface and have jazzed it up.

And this has not been restricted to just the application itself. The applications often demand attention like some spoilt brat - the "HELLO? YOU HAVE MAIL!!!" syndrome. While in some cases, such as Lotus Notes, the default is to rise to the top of the window stack and bang a modal window up to get your input everytime there is new mail, you can tone this down to an audible bell only. Or ICQ clients which reappear on the top at a new message coming in. And there are others - visual alarms on calendaring tools and probably more that I have forgotten.

When I have the option, these programs are pushed into the bit bucket as fast as possible. Using them is a dire waste of productivity. Where there is no choice about using that software, I try and tone down the alarms to be just audible effects which I can acknowledge without having to press a key, move the mouse or otherwise stir from whatever I'm doing.

So really, this research sounds like a patch for the problem, rather than a cure. The problem is with the UI design - programs are increasingly "rude" in their attempts to get attention. At least if I hold the source, annoying habits in essential software can be trimmed to a minimum. But rarely in the Unix side of the world do I have to worry about annoying software - 95% of the stuff which irks me is Windows-ware. Maybe the art of Zen is dead on the MS platform...

Cheers,

Toby Haynes