A closer look at tab usage & attention.
Leah Strickman & Paul Cronan
Project Goal Our initial goal was to visualize and emphasize the overload of content and data that we are constantly taking in on the internet, and the way we divide our attention between that content. We wanted to create a 3 dimensional object that would show how we navigate this experience. Since we’re dealing with many layers or surfaces of simultaneous activity we arrived at the idea of building a landscape to represent the data. As we explored the idea of a topographic surface we began gathering imagery for inspiration.
Data Collection To collect our data, we took screen grab videos of 10 minutes of screen use from 10 different people. We made spread sheets that documented how many tabs were open at any given time and of those, which one was being used. We color coded the sheets to make them easier to understand. Light green represents tabs that are open but not being used, dark green means the participant was paying active attention to the tab, red means a new website was opened within the same tab, and blue means a tab was opened or closed.
Initial Visualizations These are some of the systems we expereimented with once we had settled on a way of collecting data - some dealt with the data minute by minute, whille others focused on the shifting of the attention line up and down.
Initial Ideas & Inspiration Initial ideas for translating the data into physical form included books, origami folding, scrolls of paper, and laser cutting pieces of material to create texture. We considered projecting light through a translucent surface to show the information, but ultimately decided to go with a more tactile material. The following are some images of different executions we considered.
Final Visualization System Our final visualization functions by establishing a central line of attention, which is highlighted. Each open tab is represented by a line. When the participant switches tabs, that line shifts so that it is centered on the line of attention, moving the whole set of lines. Listed along the timeline are the applications and sites the participant was viewing at the time. See examples on the following page.
How We Did It Our final product was made by laser cutting our visualizations out of pieces of plywood and stacking them all together. We slightly altered the visualizations for the plywood by indenting text and adding notches to the top line when the participant changed websites within the same tab. When you swivel out an individual board you can see the data for that person, but together they make a landscape that goes back to the original topography idea we were interested in. We made it by cutting out each piece along with some additional pieces that keep it together.
Examples of files we prepared to laser cut
Above: Images of laser cutting and building the final product Right: Explorations of which order to put the visualizations in
This project was made in Fall 2015 at Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts for Form & Interaction.