Calm technology
Technology designed to inform from the periphery of attention, without requiring us to look at it, and that moves to the center only when we need it.
What problem it addresses
It explains why so many alerts are exhausting: every device asks for attention at once, and technology ends up bothering instead of helping.
An example
An illustrative example: two ways of knowing the washing machine has finished.
Both give the same information, but only one makes you stop what you were doing.
Why it happens
We attend to very few things at once.
Everything else we notice out of the corner of our eye, effortlessly.
And it moves to the center only when something changes.
Applications in design
Use it like this
Before adding an alert, ask whether it could be a discreet signal you notice in passing.
Avoid
Using sound, vibration and a notification for something that can wait.
Don’t fall for it
Calm isn’t invisible: if something is urgent, it has to be able to get attention.
6.9 → 9.5
What the research says
In an experiment, 48 people answered emails with and without interruptions every two minutes. With interruptions they finished somewhat sooner and without more errors, but their stress rose from 6.9 to 9.5 on a scale of 1 to 20 (Mark, Gudith and Klocke, 2008).
Single study. It is a single lab experiment on the cost of interruptions. Calm technology itself is a design proposal that has barely been measured.
Connections
Authors and works
- 1996
Mark Weiser and John Seely Brown
Proposed technology that moves between the center and the periphery of attention. Their example was a string hanging from the ceiling that twitched more or less depending on network traffic.
- 2015
Amber Case
Turned the idea into design principles and patterns for today’s products.
- 2008
Gloria Mark, Daniela Gudith and Ulrich Klocke
Measured that working with interruptions increases stress and frustration, even if the task is finished sooner.
Sources
Original sources
- Weiser, M., & Brown, J. S. (1996). The coming age of calm technology. Xerox PARC (versión revisada de “Designing calm technology”, PowerGrid Journal, 1.01). View source: Weiser, M., & Brown, J. S. (1996)
- Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008). The cost of interrupted work: More speed and stress. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’08), 107–110. ACM. View source: Mark, G., Gudith, D., & Klocke, U. (2008)
Secondary sources
- Case, A. (2015). Calm technology: Principles and patterns for non-intrusive design. O’Reilly. View source: Case, A. (2015)
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