Digital Well-Being: If you need to resort to alert fatigue, you’re designing it wrong.

hello we're graduate students from the

University of Michigan School of

Information my name is Megan this is

then we're both studying human-computer

interaction and plan to go into UX and

quantum design once we graduate next

year my two other colleagues Ayotte and

any they're studying data mining and

analytics and they'll be graduate

graduating with the master's in health

informatics so today we'll be discussing

what digital wellness is why it's

important and what are the current

biggest tech companies doing about it

digital baldness is the optimum state of

health and well-being that each

individual using technology is capable

of doing and capable of achieving so why

is digital wellness important the amount

of time we spend with digital technology

and products is increasing we spend

quite a bit of our time utilizing two

digital products such as video games

YouTube emails slack and social media

and to a certain degree we don't have a

choice but to use these products now a

lot of these platforms are trying very

hard to fight for our attention the hook

model displayed here is from a book

titled hooked how to a bit how to build

habit-forming products by near I'll

there's a trigger such as a alert like a

notification that leads to action and

with action comes a reward the reward

can be variable so for example just

getting being able to get rid of like

the annoying red little box or being

able to interact to a friend's comment

for four years tech companies have been

measuring the success of these products

with engagement as their key metric

designers are expected to incorporate

interactions and sometimes dark even

dark user experience patterns to

constantly entice users to come back to

our products and because of this

pressure to increase numbers UX

designers who are supposed to be

champions for users find it very

difficult to create products with users

well-being in mind

one of the consequences of this battle

for our attention is a lot fatigue this

term comes from the healthcare industry

the alerts referring to notifications

health care providers receive in the

day-to-day interactions with the

electronic health record system I'm a

dental surgeon by training so I have

personally experienced this before in

purely the more your alerts a provider

the better care the patient should

receive right but too many alerts can

lead to alert fatigue which can be an

alarming problem so what does this

phenomena that you've heard us mention

so many times

I learned fatigue occurs when one is

exposed to a large number of frequent

alerts and consequently becomes

desensitized to them desensitization can

lead to longer response times a missing

important information users are really

feeling the effects of all these

applications competing for their

attention through unhealthy distracting

notifications this constant barrage of

alerts taking a toll on their mental

health a note fatigue has now followed

us into our daily lives as well and is

gaining momentum in the tech industry

one of the things that we use University

of Michigan students recently had an

issue with last Saturday was enacted

June thankfully and turned it up to be

nothing but a false alarm but for about

two and a half hours we had close to 45

notifications by email application

notifications text messages or other

notifications from the University of

Michigan describing the active shooter

what to do and where to go this

notification barrage was extremely

emergent and during the time of which it

was taking place

it was a reality we thought there was an

active shooter on campus like I said

this turned out to be a false alarm

which is why it hasn't been in the news

but for us at the University of Michigan

we really felt that there was a

life-or-death situation taking place

Palmer University how this relates to

alert fatigue is if I would've been

working on a project she's talking on a

conversation with JIRA or a long email

can with my my colleagues and I really

wanted to get some work done

these alerts could have easily been

turned off had I wanted to get down to

work during that time I wouldn't have

received any of the active shooter

notifications which could have easily

led to to my peril or any of my other

people's peril because I might not do

what I need to do this is the reason we

need to be aware of what our words are

doing and how it affects us my colleague

is never going to talk about you and rqx

patterns and what we can do about it

actually no okay

Danny's gonna talk about Michelle's

gonna talk about dark yes so for example

Facebook it has a lot of dark UX

patterns Facebook sends users

notifications that are not always

applicable to the applicable to a user

so depending on our activity level as

default we receive notifications about

the activities of our friends we can

receive notifications about a friend

sharing a memory friend updating a

status a friend uploading a video and

etc so even though the notification is

not relevant to us specifically we see

these annoying red alert notifications

pop up and we naturally feel inclined to

get rid of the annoyance and the sole

way to remove the red annoy notification

is to click on it and come back to the

app Facebook message tries to create

users attention with a user's attention

to increase visit time for example when

someone is commenting on a post that we

commented on we see animation showing

that someone else is currently

commenting while this animation can be

useful in heated debates generally it

just makes users curious and entices

them to stare blankly at the animation

while waiting for someone else's comment

to be posted these design features are

dark UX patterns because they're not

being designed with users priority in

mind but rather being designed with the

purpose of simply getting users to come

back to Facebook as much as possible

there's evidence that users are not

feeling the effects of all these product

products and applications constantly

fighting for our attention and companies

are experiencing backlash these

techniques that we were that we're meant

to increase engagement ironically is now

leading to a decrease in engagement all

right it's time I would like us all to

take out our phones and go to the

application settings and the application

notification settings I have read on

Google phone and thing if you have

Windows Phones I'm sorry I have no idea

having this option so we're going to

find out to see who has the most

notifications from one during one day on

the Google phone or Android operation

you go to settings application

notifications and then time spent in

apps plan Apple phone users just go to

your settings screen time click on your

phone's name on the top right corner

you'll see last seven days and that

should show you notifications for the

week on Google Chrome there's a little

drop down from screen time to

notification receive does anyone have

more than one hundred eighty-four

notifications I had those on Tuesday I

know we have at least one person who has

more than that on two phones

if you click on your name yeah yeah

[Laughter]

[Music]

okay what do we got

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I'm sorry well that we all have our

applications open this sort of thing was

able to be found on our most iOS devices

our Android devices a couple of

iterations in general terms this design

is designed to help us with our digital

wellness and being able to turn on and

off notifications in a much easier way

for Apple if you're doing it on an

iPhone which has part about winding the

widely the most winding souls problem

and the market they allow you to manage

the amount of time you're using in an

app and if you go over your time limit

you continue to get a notification like

once every five minutes the saying hey

you need to stop watching YouTube and

get back to working for Android it's a

little bit more pushy Thanks if you go

if I go over my time limit on Instagram

which happens all the time it allows me

to turn off the implication and it grace

it out on the screen sorry I have to go

back into the settings turn off the

screen time limit to get back on this

event which is something I probably

shouldn't be doing and this kind of this

kind of behavior given to us by Google

and Android or Google and Apple are is

really one of the best things we see to

digital ones and how we're able to give

us to all the people who are on such a

wide variety of phones and usage

really helps us tackle the digital

wellness to a wide swath of people even

though some of us obviously couldn't do

it didn't figure out the phone even we

might have been winnings man one of the

things that we're going to talk a lot

more is how effective these were

wellness going forward and some of the

do's and don'ts of great apps of how

we're doing it moving forward some of

those absolutely zero Danny is going to

be talking more about it's the right way

doing this for me it was one thing that

I wanted to idea was that this exercise

showed us how operating systems act as a

band-aid over the real issue but what we

want to focus on is how apps themselves

should have these design features in

them and not rely on the operating

system to cover up their verification of

artistics so how many people here are

familiar with say JIRA or somewhat of

the ticketing system now people enjoy

the default notification settings that

JIRA sends you every time you have a

ticket emails all right yeah so if you

can see on the top this was just from a

Monday morning one day where one of our

professors decided to update a batch of

tickets for us which ensued a slew of

emails that caused both my smartphone

and my SmartWatch in my computer to

start vibrating like it was an

earthquake

which imbecile I turned everything off

but if this is an actual job I can't do

that yeah I might be missing important

thing I could but I don't think my

colleagues and my boss will be very

happy with me well for example say my

classes sometimes in Piazza which is a

messaging board system where you can

post questions and students and

instructors can respond to those

questions when I first started using I

had no idea that it was gonna send me

notifications every four hours at all

hours of the night telling me who posted

what even if I never posted on it be if

you can see in the bottom you know 4:30

a.m. someone still has posted this

question I don't care okay

but there were questions I did ask that

dickey responses and it got lost in

massive deluge of emails so these are

the things that you know they default to

just send you Massa Massa notification

these are things you shouldn't be doing

now how many people leave you slack

how many people like the voice slack

central notifications yeah so if you

look at the top three you know you might

not be able to see it but this is the

decision tree that slack uses to decide

should I be sending a notification you

can see it's the pretty complex system

settings some user settings it looked at

you know the different time zones users

and decides whether or not you know I

might have formed some people because

it's a sensible time but if they're 12

hours behind I may not for them because

it's the middle of the night for them so

default settings that users can change

is a good idea automatic detection a

time zone so that you're not sending

messages to people who are in a

different time zone and then you can

also start the threads on specific

messages so you're not having four

different conversations trying to figure

out which ones which you have all your

conversations under a single thread and

if you want to refer back to it it's

easy to find that exact thread

so now companies are starting to get on

this we've talked about Facebook quite a

bit Facebook is trying to write some of

their past wrongs they've installed an

activity dashboard and they're starting

to give techniques to have people that

allow people to decrease the amount of

notifications they get some of those

dark UX patterns we talked about

notifications that you know what your

friends are doing you really don't care

about you can limit those they're also

collaborating with leading mental health

experts and researchers as well as

academia and they're doing their own

research as well as taking user input to

try and correct some of their flaws

they've also just recently acquired

Instagram because of that they're now

probably one of the biggest chunks of

social media that we see they've been

pioneered the all caught up feature so

you don't have the fear of missing out

so you don't have to spend four hours

and Instagram hoping that not helping

making sure you don't miss out on any of

your friends juicy gossip

so societies are now pushing back and

companies of questioning companies about

their social responsibility and as a

result companies are now designing with

healthier behaviors in mind again like

Boz mentioned before our lives are

increasingly being into wine with

technology and tech companies have a

greater responsibility to help users

establish a more mindful relationship

the 10th

so I believe us UX designers we have a

greater social responsibility than to

simply measure the success of a product

vice engagement

I believe products that the users

wellness as a priority and if that

product that gave users a peace of mind

are products that with the best user

experience when I design all of my

products to engage users not by harmful

dark effects patterns such as endless

notifications but by the quality of the

experience we provide with our products

if there's one thing you take away from

day is that you should have good

notification logic you should have taken

counted a diversity your team's well

that's the diversity of timezones

diversity some people actually do like

all the notifications well I'm guessing

most people don't like those beautiful

notifications you should take those into

account as well and it's up to the

designers and developers to create an

experience that's good for the users

from the perspective of farmer health

professional we need to be more

cognizant of how our digital lives

affect a mental emotional and physical

health we as designers and developers

can build applications and notification

systems that help and not hinder our

work-life balance to create a more

holistic digital experience thank you

for your time

[Applause]

yes what do I do for Fuhrer

I mean I think if possible is it

possible to study by T bar I saw a new

department coming in my company don't

have this wall so I'm not actually yes

what are what are better default options

to do for jira so like are you saying

for new developers they're not to lose

with a wall of emails but instead maybe

they get batch updates instead I'm not

actually a hundreds I'm sure of JIRA can

do that there there definitely are

options that you can do but it's again

it's buried deep inside the user

settings and like the project settings

that you'd have to unfortunate have to

go around and play with and try and

figure out okay we just started using

here a class so we're not nearly as

inundated but with that miss you guys

are so I know that 4G are they sent up a

new thread for every notification but

something that like apples working on is

combined notifications and you get you

still get the notification but comes

into one and then you click on any see

basically what I'm saying is I want you

to do all the work there's actually two

issues with JIRA that you're on that if

you're using the self hosted open-source

version of JIRA then you have to pay for

a product that's fairly expensive if

you're on there hosted solution they

actually have built into that solution

some options

so it depends on which one you're using

self hosted or JIRA hosted and and then

if you're there Jarosz they give you

some things free if you're self hosted

you have to pay well I mean just for

normal user license it's theater or $800

a year or so I mean it's something

astronomical it's really bad privacy yes

so that there are two different there

are two different types of juror there's

the the self pay and then is the like

you can use the chair hosting options

the juror hosting options provides you

with some options but for these self

hosting you have to pay to get the other

options basically I know tom has a

question yeah I have a question about

the alerts that you were talking about

earlier so I know you mentioned or my

understanding was that you said that if

you would like turned on your do not

disturb you wouldn't have gotten that

emergency alert from the University of

Michigan and is there any way that you

can filter your alert like that was an

emergency alert I know that like I get

Amber Alerts no matter what my phone is

done at so is there any like different

levels of settings or are there alerts

that make it through those types and

filters and like number

situation like that so the question

asked is that if in terms of the alerts

are the settings that we could set our

phone on do not disturb for certain

alert and not for others it might be

something like Karen I think I know that

some emergency alerts do get through

those filters like Amber Alerts you know

get them at like 3 o'clock in the

morning when my phone is on silent but I

was just wondering in terms of like the

Michigan alerts or that types of things

if you guys know if there's any way you

can adjust the settings for emergency

situations like so I'm better

Oh federal yeah so that is that is a

bypass that they have pointed out

private apps especially when you do

University app that would not be

possible which is why we are telling

apps and app designers themselves to

make sure that such a situation would

not occur because there are other apps

that do send out emergency alerts like

the University are and we don't want to

say Facebook to send you like 10,000

alerts about different things that your

friends are doing and that important

emergency led by the University being

lost in one of those enough for text

messaging alerts you can go through and

individualize who you're getting the

text messages from like say if a person

that you usually maybe another sick you

or as has health problems or something

like that you can have them always push

through and be as an emergency contact

and you can change that individually on

the Google pixel phone I don't know how

that translate to other devices

you have to not disturb you can say okay

but these yeah there is a list of people

that you could stay that is a way around

it in in the instance of having people

who are your emergency contact but you

can't do it by like apps I don't think

so but there again for the Do Not

Disturb option if someone calls you

repair it repetitively you can also have

that like pull out just in case an

emergency

we had mana questions what happens if

what happens in your opinion like where

does this leave it behavior doesn't

change by half developers so the

question is what would happen if app

developers do not change their behavior

I think it's really coming into the

perspective of will becoming the phone

that cries wolf the boy the cry school

he never got taken seriously and the

more the time the more alerts and the

more notifications we get the more

things are lost in the cracks and the

way that you look at emergency situation

like they active shooter we didn't have

the ability if they if important things

fill them with all of the other BS that

happens it it begins to dilute

everything and as everything gets

diluted it becomes less and less

important and these are notifications

what's the point of a notification if

you get one every minute on the minute

for 24 hours you just don't care I'd

answer your question based on what maybe

took the time out fatigue from such only

now coming into play in tech industry

but has existed in the healthcare

industry for a while and one of the

effects that we've seen in the

healthcare NASA to follow it fatigue is

that doctors become desensitized I did

mention that there as well and sometimes

what happens is when there's constant

beeping we just assume it's for the

regular process is that that has been

going on and we might miss the emergency

like that I need to be in the OT right

now because as the patient that I just

spent for a regular check out to the

nurse had an emergency I know except

asphyxia and he has been sent to the ot

and I need to be there I might miss it

all because I'm assuming that the beeps

are for the regular processes because I

get notified at each step that the

patient or stroke for you sir

so this is I feel like this is like a

two steps to parts of it so like each

individual app might have their might

reduce their alerts but as we all know

there's tons of apps people tend to put

tons of apps on their phone so each

individual app can't control if there's

if you have 20 other ones that's sending

a message I would think then the only

solution in that case then would be that

having options on operating system to

choose how often cert apps like give you

an alert do you know if that's something

that's being like reached by thought

about or try it or anything like that or

something similar I do know that when it

comes to app to app variability you have

the option of selecting the notification

type that you get at least on an iPhone

I'm not sure about either but so one of

those things is that I can if I feel

like the text messages that I get

because nowadays people don't use

regular text messaging they prefer

what's up where are the free text

messaging services so if I know that I

am the kind of person who'd get a text

message if it's important I could send

my I could set my text messages

notifications to stay on my screen till

I perform an action whereas for alerts

for apps that I don't really care about

I could just have them go in over the

top of the screen and then go back

rather than stay on the screen till I

perform an action so that's one of the

are to have variability options that you

can set at least on an iPhone

and Jenny had a question is there any

benchmark for screen time period that

you've seen

oh so the question is returning

benchmarks Burnie from the screen time

yeah I don't know if anything because

it's not a built-in function they don't

like limit your screen time from the

beginning if they it's something you

have to allow an input I feel like if we

were here by the phone and they would

immediately be limiting my screen time

we would be pretty unhappy about that

especially if it like that's someone

else making a decision as to what is

healthy for us and it's an individual by

individual basis we have to go and do it

but you can do it for your kids poems

and if you have like master controlling

for like any administrator functions on

the phone you can go and do it to other

folks which is important for you don't

want your children on other phones like

on the phone too much but it's homework

time that kind of thing I agree with Ben

about height is very subjective so far

an operating system to do it and make

that decision for you would be like it

would lead to a public outcry right

there

another thing is out and if you've seen

advertisements for us smart smart

refrigerators and smart devices that has

been going on part of that is one of the

advertisements had that feature where

the mother was working in the kitchen

and from the refrigerator she turns the

Wi-Fi off and then sends an alert to

everyone's cell phone devices or

whatever devices they're working on to

come to the dining table and sit down

for dinner so that is something that

technology is moving towards and they

are cognizant of some of the files just

it's scary when I got my new phone and

then it just popped up out of number

saying you been on your phone for over

six hours today

would you rather matter to come through

your speakers and Dougal say are you

okay I think we're almost out of our

time do we have any other last questions

if we thank you for being a wonderful

audience and taking our treasures

[Applause]

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