We present methods for inferring the cost of interrupting users based on multiple streams of events including information generated by interactions with computing devices, visual and acoustical analyses, and data drawn from online calendars. Following a review of prior work on techniques for deliberating about the cost of interruption associated with notifications, we introduce methods for learning models from data that can be used to compute the expected cost of interruption for a user. We describe the Interruption Workbench, a set of event-capture and modeling tools. Finally, we review experiments that characterize the accuracy of the models for predicting interruption cost and discuss research directions.

We present methods for inferring the cost of interrupting users based on multiple streams of events including information generated by interactions with computing devices, visual and acoustical analyses, and data drawn from online calendars. Following a review of prior work on techniques for deliberating about the cost of interruption associated with notifications, we introduce methods for learning models from data that can be used to compute the expected cost of interruption for a user. We describe the Interruption Workbench, a set of event-capture and modeling tools. Finally, we review experiments that characterize the accuracy of the models for predicting interruption cost and discuss research directions.

We propose a system that determines the salience of entities within web documents. Many recent advances in commercial search engines leverage the identification of entities in web pages. However, for many pages, only a small subset of entities are central to the document, which can lead to degraded relevance for entity triggered experiences. We address this problem by devising a system that scores each entity on a web page according to its centrality to the page content. We propose salience classification functions that incorporate various cues from document content, web search logs, and a large web graph. To cost-effectively train the models, we introduce a soft labeling methodology that generates a set of annotations based on user behaviors observed in web search logs. We evaluate several variations of our model via a large-scale empirical study conducted over a test set, which we release publicly to the research community. We demonstrate that our methods significantly outperform competitive baselines and the previous state of the art, while keeping the human annotation cost to a minimum.

Abstract. Inference and decision making with probabilistic user models may be infeasible on portable devices such as cell phones. We highlight the opportunity for storing and using precomputed inferences about ideal actions for future situations, based on offline learning and reasoning with the user models. As a motivating example, we focus on the use precomputation of call-handling policies for cell phones. The methods hinge on the learning of Bayesian user models for predicting whether users will attend meetings on their calendar and the cost of being interrupted by incoming calls should a meeting be attended.

Abstract.We review experiments with bounded deferral, a method aimed at reducing the disruptiveness of incoming messages and alerts in return for bounded delays in receiving information. Bounded deferral provides users with a means for balancing awareness about potentially urgent information with the cost of interruption.