- With the rapid improvement in the computing power of mobile devices and their use in a variety of scenarios, users today have the opportunity to make use of fragmented time which was previously considered unusable.
- Rapid task switching is a standard practice on mobile devices as tasks routinely get interrupted, and it is difficult to allocate the required amount of focus that complex tasks require.
- The most common way researchers have explored to help people complete complex tasks while mobile is to support better mobile interruption management practices.
- Prior work has demonstrated how to algorithmically support task decomposition, breaking tasks into much smaller pieces than previously imaginable; microtasks can be designed to be independent of each other and require limited time and context to complete.
- Prior research shows that doing a task via microtasks allows people to produce higher quality work with less effort than doing the task as a whole.
- The flexibility and portability of microtasks makes them ideal for surfacing on mobile devices; they can then be performed anywhere, at any time, and even interleaved with other tasks.
- Play Write was designed as a mobile app for performing document editing microtasks, creating additional opportunities to edit during moments that are typically considered unsuitable for complex tasks.
- The app allows the individual to self-source microtasks that can be deferred and interleaved with other tasks, taking advantage of micro-moments that happen throughout the day.

Play Write: Introduction

- Play Write builds on existing literature on productivity and distraction to use microtasking as a way to help people make use of small moments. 
- Play Write allows exploration of how microtasking impacts an individual’s experience with mobile multitasking.

Additional Sections:
- Multitasking
- Microtasking

Play Write: Related Work

- The researchers of this study chose to explore microtasking within the context of the writing domain because it requires fundamental but varied skills, including reading, analysis, reasoning, and communication.
- Considering a document’s developmental stage in categorization of micro-writing tasks is valuable because it scaffolds the work, prompts engagement with tasks people might normally skip, and eases cognitive load.
- The idea behind this app is that people can use small writing tasks to ease into larger writing tasks.

Additional Sections:
- Existing Micro-Writing Systems
- Micro-Writing Practices

Play Write: Current Micro-Writing Practices

- First, users create Play Write microtasks from an existing Microsoft Word document by clicking a specific button from a Word plugin.
- The button has the plugin extract text from the document that can be edited.
- An engine then looks through the extracted text to creator microtasks on how to improve that section, which then notifies the phone user that they have new tasks available.
- Based on feedback from the previous section’s study, Play Write exposes the following microtasks on the mobile app: fixing spelling errors, identifying wordy sentences, simplifying text by deleting words, accepting or rejecting changes, and addressing comments.

Additional Sections:
- Play Write Word Plugin
- Play Write Mobile Application

Play Write: The Play Write System

- Developers conducted a lab study to compare the experience of using Play Write with other traditional mobile editing experiences with Mobile Word.
- Participants were asked to edit a document from their mobile phone while watching a video on their laptop, with the video serving as a proxy for a continuous attention task.
- The study used a within-subjects design with the editing app as the factor.

Additional Sections:
- Participants
- Experimental Tasks
- Protocol

Play Write: Evaluation

- Overall, Play Write was overwhelmingly preferred for the divided attention scenario that was created for this study, with 13/16 participants preferring the app compared to Mobile Word.

Additional Sections:
- Document Editing Performance
- Video Watching Performance
- Multitasking Performance
- When Play Write May be Useful
- Summary

Play Write: Results

- In a world of fragmented attention and rapid task switching, finding large blocks of time to accommodate traditional ways of being productive is challenging, and Play Write provides an opportunity to use micro-moments to complete microtasks that contribute towards a larger productivity goal without a large time or attention commitment.
- Some limitations of the study include that it was performed in a controlled laboratory setting using documents that were not familiar to the participants.
- Play Write microtasks were more resilient to task switching between editing and watching the video, more than the traditional macro-editing tasks done via Mobile Word.
- While Play Write presents microtasks that could be completed with limited context, in practice researchers found that apart from spelling and grammatical corrections, microtasks like triage comments, shortening, and accepting and rejecting changes sometimes required more context than Play Write offered.
- Regardless of the amount of context provided, Play Write currently seems unlikely to ever fully support the range of editing that people are used to in their desktop editing experiences.
- While Play Write presents microtasks on a mobile divide to leverage micro-moments, they could be surfaced in other context to yield added benefits, such as on desktop editing tasks.
- Despite its current shortcomings, the developers believe that Play Write, and microtasking more generally is potentially disruptive to existing work practices.

Play Write: Discussion

Mobile devices offer people the opportunity to get useful tasks done during time previously thought to be unusable. Because cell phones have small screens, they’re useful for short, simple tasks. The researchers in this study designed a special app, Play Write, whose purpose is to make complex editing tasks more fragmented and achievable while working on mobile devices. Results suggested that the app made participants feel more productive and less stressed, and they completed more edits on a document using the app.

Boston College

Macalester College

The act of decomposing tasks into smaller microtasks that leverage micromoments (specific, strategic moments that occur during a person's day).

Microproductivity

Small jobs that requires a low level of skill and takes minimal time to complete. Microtasking is the process of splitting up a large job (macro-task) into smaller jobs.

Microtasks/ Microtasking

- Multitasking with Play Write, a mobile microproductivity writing tool
- Does Multitasking Improve Performance? Evidence from the Emergency Department.



Related Literature 

The term multitasking (or time sharing) was first used to describe the sharing of computing processor capacity amongst a number of distinct jobs (e.g., Denning (1971)). In the workplace today, human multitasking is a natural response to the increased demand from a growing number of competing activities. 

Multitasking

Iqbal, S. T., Teevan, J., Liebling, D., & Thompson, A. L. (2018) Multitasking with Play Write, a Mobile Microproductivity Writing Tool. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, 411–422. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3242587.3242611

Multitasking with Play Write, a mobile microproductivity writing tool

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/project/microtasks-and-microproductivity/

Microsoft's Microproductivity Research Team Overview

 In this paper, authors explore how software might help programmers make productive use of their time while away from their workspace. It explores how to facilitate programmers’ mobile work practices and cross-device work as subjects express interest in work more grounded in their existing code tasks. The paper introduces Mercury, a mobile programming tool that auto-generates microtasks based on programmers’ existing code. 

Mercury: Empowering Programmers’ Mobile Work Practices with Microproductivity 

This article explores the usefulness of gamification on task-management applications in terms of motivation, engagement and productivity. 

 Deconstructing ‘Gamified’ Task-Management Applications 

A small gap in time that occurs between other segments of occupied time during which microtasks can be completed

Micromoment

This article was written by the leader of the Microsoft Research team detailing concepts and developments needed to understand the domain of Microproductivity. It also presented the conclusions of a short study conducted by the team (not explained in detailed), and its practical implications. 

The future of Microproductivity 

- A Brief Perspective on Microtask Crowdsourcing Workflows for Interface Design
- Skill Development Framework for Micro-Tasking


Further Literature

The completion and aggregation of microtasks. Involves motivating people to complete microtasks, designing where and when to embed microtasks, and managing attention.

Task Completion Definiton

The sourcing of tasks and microtasks to an actor to complete. For example, a microtask could be completed by the task owner, peers, the crowd, or automation.

Task Sourcing Definition

More resilient to interruptions, yield higher quality work, can be used to scaffold the cognitive process of maintaining and rebuilding context for complex tasks and make tasks more engaging 

Microtask characteristics

The use of microtasks to break down large-scale collaborative projects into small chunks that can be conducted individually and with little need for coordination between individual workers. 

Microtasks in Crowd Work

Completing a set of microtasks in succession. The ways that microtasks are ordered in a chain affects the extent to which people complete the tasks productively and accurately and continue to engage with subsequent tasks.

Microtask Chaining

A predefined series of microtasks designed such that the output of the set of microtasks can be used to successfully complete a larger task. While most existing microproductivity approaches currently expect task structure to be provided up front, workflows can also be developed dynamically.


Workflow

- 1) decompose large tasks into microtasks, 
- 2) efficiently complete each microtasks, 
- 3) source microtasks to the most appropriate actor.


3 Areas of Microtask development (The future of Microproductivity) 

Soliciting support from peers (via “friendsourcing”) or paid crowd workers (via “crowdsourcing”) is easy with microproductivity, because sharing a self-contained microtask with another person requires almost no coordination overhead. Microtasks can be allocated to the most appropriate person depending on the required level of expertise, the person’s availability, and their familiarity with the task. 

Microtask Sourcing 

Complex tasks are characterized in two ways: 
- (1) intellectually, they require reasoning and non-repetitive creativity and 
- (2) organizationally, they require multiple people working in multiple roles with interdependencies among the microtasks they perform


Complex Tasks in Crowd Work

Priming has been used in the realms of psychology as a way to alter people's behaviors or performance. It can be overt (supraliminal) or covert (subliminal). A subsequent behavior, which is a result of the priming, occurs typically without conscious awareness. In the field of microtask crowdsourcing, multiple types of primes have been used to increase and alter people's performance.

Priming to Increase Performance in Microtask Crowdsourcing

Differences have been noted in terms of performance between microtasks and macrotasks. These are related to the time taken to complete them, their quality/accuracy, and the workers' preferences. There are also differences in the effects of interruption on micro- and macrotasks.


Performance Differences In Micro- and Macrotasks

Microtasks can give people a sense of accomplishment early on in the task, which can help with motivation. Concrete progress with lots of feedback contributes to a sense of self-efficacy, and completing microtasks is functionally efficient and helps with motivation, so people are more likely to be productive for longer.

Microtasks and Motivation

The process of breaking large tasks down into microtasks such that each microtask contributes towards the overall goal.

Task Decomposition Definition

While microtasking is more pertinent to work environments, it can be used in educational contexts to ameliorate students' performance. Teachers can implement microtasks into their curricula to help students who underperform compared to their peers.

Microtasking in an Educational Context

This paper examines the effect of multitasking on overall worker performance, as measured by processing time, throughput rate, and output quality using micro-level operational data from the field. Specifically, it studies the multitasking behavior of physicians in a busy hospital emergency department.

Does Multitasking Improve Performance? Evidence from the Emergency Department

- Multitasking with Play Write, a mobile microproductivity writing tool
- Does Multitasking Improve Performance? Evidence from the Emergency Department


References to related Literature

•	Several contingent tasks are performed at the same time.

•	Employees constantly switch between multiple demanding and ongoing tasks in a modern work environment, impacting productivity.

Multitasking in the workplace

Media multitasking increases media absorption by enabling students to use two or more mediums at once. As media use is largely unregulated in college, this behavior extends to this institution.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After