Minimizing Attention Costs of Visual OHMD Notifications.

Notifications provide crucial secondary information but can also interrupt users and interfere with their primary tasks. Given the increased usage of mobile devices and digital services, reducing the adverse effects of notifications has become an essential research challenge in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) field. The Optical See-Through Head-Mounted Display (OST HMD, OHMD, augmented-reality smart glasses) is an emerging mobile and wearable device platform that could potentially supplant the mobile phone as a daily device companion. This work explores ways of minimizing the attention costs of OHMD notifications based on human visual perception. We propose 1) the utilization of paracentral and near-peripheral regions, 2) transforming text content into a graphical format, and 3) altering the luminance of notification content when displaying OHMD notifications. Each proposed OHMD notification design was evaluated through a series of user studies. Our results suggest that by modifying the information presentation of OHMD notifications, users can obtain secondary information with less distraction to primary tasks than with existing presentation techniques. Finally, we suggest a three-step process to manage the attention costs of OHMD notifications using multiple strategies.