Task-Centric Application Switching: How and Why Knowledge Workers Switch Software Applications for a Single Task

Amir Jahanlou, Jo Vermeulen, Tovi Grossman, Parmit Chilana, George Fitzmaurice, Justin Matejka

Keywords: Human-centered computing, Human computer interaction, Application Switching, Empirical studies in HCI

TL;DR: Switching between applications is a deterrent to productivity. Yet, users make hundred of switches per day. We wanted to learn why.

Abstract: Knowledge workers often have to switch between multiple software tools to complete a single task, which can deter productivity. Previous literature has established the high incidence of application switching that comes with the cost of converting and transferring data or getting distracted and wasting time to re-focus. This research explores why knowledge workers deliberately switch between many applications despite potential drawbacks. We interviewed 15 knowledge workers and five product teams to understand why users switch between separate tools to complete tasks. From our results, we synthesize an initial taxonomy of reasons for application switching, illustrate the role of collaboration and external forces, and detail the challenges caused by application switching. We offer design implications for how task-centric application switching can be better supported by promoting multi-tool learning, designing interfaces that enable users to reflect on their application-switching behavior, and application-switching analytics.

Track: HCI/visualization

Summary Of Changes:

Round 2: Reply to email on March 7th.
Thank you for the feedback and reviews. As there were no changes required, we made a final read pass and made some minor formatting changes.

Regards
Authors - Task-centring Application Switching

Round 1 of Reviews:
We thank the reviewers for their thorough feedback and valuable suggestions. To address concerns and incorporate suggestions, we have made the following adjustments to the paper:

Scoping and definition of terms:
In the introduction, we added an excerpt with an example to describe and define the concept of a "task" more clearly in this paper. In our definition, what we define as a task consists of multiple steps contributing to the same end goal. Although it is common for a single task to be completed within a specific software tool, we consider the case where knowledge workers use multiple tools to complete the same task (e.g., editing a video).

Table 1:
We agree that the average age does not make sense to report. We thank the reviewers for pointing it out. We have removed it accordingly.

Recruitment Method:
Regarding the concerns about the product teams having been selected from the same company, we have added the following details to the paper:
As the research division of a large technology company (over 10,000 employees) with over 100 software products in its portfolio, we had the unique opportunity to speak to different product teams who worked on a variety of different software tools. Most of these product teams had no or limited relationships with other groups.

Figure 1:
We added more details to the caption of Figure 1 to clarify the relationship between the bubble size and the number of responses. We explain that the bubbles are visualized using a logarithmic scale and provide an example of the number of responses for the largest and smallest bubble sizes.

Overall readability improvements:
Added authorship.
We fixed a few formatting issues and did an editing pass to fit the paper within eight pages.