Designing tech that protects us from distraction (humanetech.com)

[nelsonic]

Watch these videos:

• How better tech could protect us from distraction - Tristan Harris (TED Talk): https://youtu.be/D55ctBYF3AY
• Empowering Design; (Ending the Attention Economy, Talk Do we need hapi? #1): https://vimeo.com/123488311
• This Panda Is Dancing: A poetic short film about our technology addiction https://youtu.be/tf9ZhU7zF8s

We need UI that enables people to stay focussed on their work and not get (constantly) distracted by the unimportant.

[nelsonic]

Net Positive Contribution to Human Life - NPCHL ... not very "catchy"...

[waldyrious]

@nelsonic what, specifically, is the help that's needed in this issue?

[nelsonic]

@waldyrious great question! Let me try and clarify.
We need help formulating a list of the features which would help protect people from distraction while they are trying to focus on their most important task/activity.
How it relates to the "Time" App specifically we need to sketch some UI (ideas) for how to share with colleagues/friends/family-members when we are in "focussed mode" with the option to either share the specific task name the person is working on or just "busy".

[waldyrious]

Thanks for the clarifications, @nelsonic. I haven't played with the app yet due to the "new version coming soon" in the header, so I'm afraid I can't contribute at the moment with how this relates to the app itself, but the topic interests me greatly and I'll share any concrete notes or ideas I eventually take from those videos.

Off the top of my head, some thoughts I've had about this are:

1. Implementing ways to move as much of inbound information into queues for asynchronous consumption (email, rss, etc. as opposed to ephemeral push notifications)
2. Integrating "snooze" functionality into whatever needs to create an interruption, and here the UI pioneered by Mailbox and now Google's Inbox provides great inspiration: several (configurable) default snooze intervals, and location-based (among others) re-triggering mechanisms in addition to purely time-based ones.
3. Collecting as much data passively as possible, and deferring conversion into information to later on, rather than depending on in-the-moment introspection. In terms of time tracking apps, for example, this is the approach taken by arbtt.

I'll add more stuff if I find it.

[Cleop]

Notes on 'How better tech could protect us from distraction - Tristan Harris (TED Talk) 15mins': https://youtu.be/D55ctBYF3AY

Slot machines make more money than movies, game parks and baseball combined in America because of their addictive quality.

• Phone is a slot machine when you refresh your email even after you refreshed it 1 min ago
• Refreshing your email/ newsfeed is pulling slot machine in anticipation of what am I going to get next? like waiting for a win on a slot machine.

We need choice, not our current options: 'distracted' ON or 'FMO' OFF

• It takes on average 23 mins to refocus after a disruption at work, the more interruptions we get externally trains us to self interrupt every 3.5mins.
• We can design tech to aid our focus/productivity not detract from it e.g. a focus mode on messenger so messages are pending unless they are urgent in which case the notification will pop up.

Designing for the benefit of others e.g. rather than spell check we could have compassion check (am I using compassionate language in this email?)

Couch Surfing example

Goal could be: to match as many guests with hosts as possible...
A human-centric goal is: to create lasting positive experiences between people who have never before
In 2007 Couch surfing developed a way to measure this (every goal needs a measure of success). Take 2 people who met up and the number of days those people spent together and estimate hours time spent together. Then asked people how good their experience was. Then they subtract time spent on the website (cost of their time) and the result was the positive time left. The net contribution they made to these people.

• Today's economy for tech firms is in 'time spent' but it could be in -> 'time well spent'
• We've solved problems in industries before where industries have been destructive e.g. agriculture > organic farming
• To make these changes we need consumer demand for change, e.g:
• Walmart didn't have organic produce until consumer demand
• McDonalds didn't have salad until consumer demand

[Cleop]

Notes on 'Empowering Design; (Ending the Attention Economy, Talk #1) 20mins': https://vimeo.com/123488311

• Our time/attention is the commodity so many tech companies fight for
• Our use of screens is on the rise and our habit is an addiction.
• Designers dictate the choices of our behaviour like in the Matrix with blue pill, red pill question:

You take the blue pill—the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill—you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes

What if there was a choice not to do either of those things? To do something different altogether? What do you want to do?

We find ourselves doing things we don't want to do, like the large number of people who find themselves glued to their phones first thing in the morning, despite the fact that 90% of them say they don't like that habit, they don't want to behave in that way.

The way things are designed communicates with us and prompts reactions from us:

E.g. notifications on a lock screen that you see when you wake up first thing in the morning, what they say to us:

• People are talking without you
• Clicking on this will open this app easily
• Look at these timestamps, see how much you've missed out on, see how out of touch you are
• Lots of notifications/noise going on makes you feel important but also overwhelmed
  But none of this stuff matters and it's not the way you want to wake up

What if you could redesign the interface to be what you'd like to see in the morning? something that would fit in with and encourage you to live out your preferred morning routine?

E.g. showing only emergency notifications, giving you access to your yoga app or an inspiring quote or goal of the day, telling you what time your first meeting is or the weather so you know what to expect from the day ahead.

This talk goes through some detailed examples of how products are offering us features but these features are designed to advance the goals of the creators of the products not our own. Actually these goals can often be at odds with one another, so whilst facebook might want you to stay on their site for longer, you might not want to but you're fighting their encouragement and design.