Characterizing the Mobile Microtask Writing Process

Abstract

The unique limitations of mobile environments make content creation and editing difficult. Microtasking-breaking down complex tasks into subtasks-requires shorter attention spans and quick interactions, making it suitable for mobile usage scenarios. Writing is an ideal process for mobile microtasking because of its many subgoals, but little is known about how writers can use this decomposition through the evolution of a document. In this paper we present findings from a controlled, week long study to characterize how writers use mobile microtasks while authoring a document. We found that writers created microtasks for editing and inserting information that generally required minimal writing. These tasks were especially well suited for mobile devices with writers completing tasks on commutes or while waiting for meetings. Writers who microtasked found it easy to interact with their document and complete tasks, writing and editing their document more overall compared to writers who instead edited their document directly on their phone.

Fragmented Moments, Balanced Choices: How Do People Make Use of Their Waiting Time?

“…Another relevant line of research discusses waiting time usage from the angle of micromoments-particularly small time gaps before the next scheduled event to star [61]-and small tasks that can be completed during those moments (microtasking). Previous research in this space examines ways to write a complete document in scattered micromoments [2,17,22,59]. For example, Play Write [22] allows users to create writing microtasks, such as correcting spelling, identifying wordy sentences, shortening sentences, and accepting or rejecting changes, to be done at gap time between other tasks.…”

“…Studies on wait-learning have developed mobile phone and computer applications enabling users to learn vocabulary while waiting, for example, for an elevator or a message [6,7]. In parallel, microtask research, while not exclusively targeting waiting time, has explored opportunities to break complex tasks down into smaller sub-tasks [2] and accomplish them in micromoments, or short bursts of time traditionally seen as unproductive [66]. However, there has been little empirical knowledge about how people naturally spend their waiting time: What activities do they spontaneously engage in and how do situational (e.g., time and location) factors impact these activities?…”