Let's Explore Attention
And why it matters in Digital Product Design.
What characteristics do people manifest when they focus their entire attention on one activity?
When people devote their entire attention on one activity, they are able to efficiently get the task completed, but if the task required any further attention on anything often these details go missed. People have 100% attention ability, no more, so as they divide up the percentage toward different tasks, of course certain requirements within those tasks can go unnoticed.
As people try to divide attention between activities, the time it takes to complete the task becomes longer, or can even endanger the user. Think about our friends putting makeup on while driving, and also on the phone. To illustrate this point precisely, think of those texting and driving- which means the users almost full attention is on their phone to insure they are typing what they want to say. We like to get through life’s tasks as quickly as possible, so multitasking is simply a part of life. Instead of multitasking however, we can ask our users to perform steps in the task
We like to get through life’s tasks as quickly as possible, so multitasking is simply a part of life. Instead of multitasking however, we can ask our users to perform steps in the task one at a time, quickly. The checklist here makes a great advocate for users to avoid mistakes by trying to perform too many actions at once.
Everyday Life Examples of Human Attention
Video Gaming
My son discovered Minecraft, I justify it in the fact that he gets to “create” his worlds, the problem though, is when I need his attention elsewhere.
While he has a 6 year old mind, I think the concept is the same for all of us. If I need him to do something else, I either have to pause the game, or turn it off.
Eating While...
People need to eat, and we need to eat a lot. We like to multi-task even our eating, thus fast food.
But even beyond fast food, we have TV dinners, to go food we eat during meetings and work, and we even like to eat while doing other activities for fun. My daughter loves to stand while she eats, and watch her little shows on “kid mode.” So far, she has not fallen out of her chair, but the phone gets pretty messy!
Cooking
The kitchen is a beast that abso- lutely requires you to perform many tasks at once. The kitchen also, is the number 1 place in the house for burning food, forgetting items in freezer, and taking multiple tasks and combining them to create a full meal. There is always a lot going on when preparing food!
Sharing Attention is Part of Life
Sometimes we don’t have a choice, we have to multi-task. I see this as a parent in my everyday tasks. I have a friend who even admits to nursing her infant while grocery shopping!
If I can perform these tasks within an activity on a checklist method, I am able to get through these activities much more efficiently.
Improve Attention in Design by-
After taking a look at how even just people in my house use their attention and what it takes to perform activities, I am able to relate these attention to interaction in several ways. Some of my ideas to improve efficiently, and users ability to correctly perform tasks to complete activities are to walk users through the tasks, in a checklist form, simplify what is around them as to not distract, provide signals when something has gone wrong, like the smell of burning food, and take advantage of all the senses to utilize the experience.
An interesting article to check out from The American Psychological Association when it comes to multitasking: https://www.apa.org/topics/research/multitasking
All images in this article were created using AI.