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Call to Action: Investigating Interaction Delay in Smartphone Notifications

Authors :
Michael Stach
Lena Mulansky
Manfred Reichert
Rüdiger Pryss
Felix Beierle
Source :
Sensors, Vol 24, Iss 8, p 2612 (2024)
Publication Year :
2024
Publisher :
MDPI AG, 2024.

Abstract

Notifications are an essential part of the user experience on smart mobile devices. While some apps have to notify users immediately after an event occurs, others can schedule notifications strategically to notify them only on opportune moments. This tailoring allows apps to shorten the users’ interaction delay. In this paper, we present the results of a comprehensive study that identified the factors that influence users’ interaction delay to their smartphone notifications. We analyzed almost 10 million notifications collected in-the-wild from 922 users and computed their response times with regard to their demographics, their Big Five personality trait scores and the device’s charging state. Depending on the app category, the following tendencies can be identified over the course of the day: Most notifications were logged in late morning and late afternoon. This number decreases in the evening, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m., and at the same time exhibits the lowest average interaction delays at daytime. We also found that the user’s sex and age is significantly associated with the response time. Based on the results of our study, we encourage developers to incorporate more information on the user and the executing device in their notification strategy to notify users more effectively.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
14248220
Volume :
24
Issue :
8
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Sensors
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.21f0409a494e439f98aae3650160e105
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.3390/s24082612