Exploring Notifications — the bane of mobile phones.

An analysis of our research on how women use their mobile devices, and how they view notifications.

This is a summary post that shares some of our learnings at Imbue around how women interact with their mobile devices and what bothers them the most about dealing with notifications. The sample set is dozens of in-person interviews and hundreds via surveys.

tldr

Observations

• Majority of the women we spoke with check their phone, on average, every 5–6 minutes for notifications, or up to 160x per day.
• 64% of women have expressed that they would prefer to keep their phones out of sight when at work or in formal social situations, in a handbag or coat pocket. This was largely motivated by how they would be perceived by others.
• While most women use the “global off switch” (put it away or silence it) to minimize phone notifications when they do not want them, for apps that are not perceived as high value, they will make the extra effort to find the means of reducing or eliminating the notifications they receive from these low value apps.

Implications

• Phones still deliver the most time-sensitive/urgent messaging we receive during our day — up to 77% of Imbue respondents said that instant messaging and calls are the primary reason they check their phones. These are also how we keep in touch with the people who depend on us most (i.e. personal connections). Therefore, women who are checking their phones to make sure they have not missed the most urgent type of messaging (calls & texts that are not transferred to her laptop), are showing concern about being disconnected from the people who are most important to them in their personal lives.
• Even if only 3–5% of a woman’s 160 notifications are of a personal nature, she will still feel compelled to check her phone just as frequently to ensure that she is aware of the 4–8 notifications she really cannot afford to miss. To date, there is no better way to know just those essential ones without looking at the phone.
• The cost of this constant checking is higher than the 10x an hour she is checking her phone (every 5–6 minutes). Depending on her operating system, the act of looking at a notifications screen to identify the most urgent messages that came through and then respond to them can take 2–5 minutes. So the actual time lost for checking on notifications can further break her concentration: up to 25 minutes / hour can be lost in managing phone notifications.
• Even checking a phone every 30 minutes (2x/hour) is disruptive — the longer the user waits between checking notifications, the more notifications there are review and respond to.
• The current all-or-nothing approach, coupled with a desire for staying connected seems to indicate potential for a product that allows for something in between — an experience that is more.. selective.

Behind the curtain — numbers and qualitative insights

Frequency of checking phones

We asked “How frequently do you find yourself checking your phone for notifications?”

• Every few minutes : 21%
• Every 5–10 minutes : 37%
• About every 30 minutes or more : 42%

Of the women we surveyed,

• 76% had their phones either on their person or within hand’s reach during the day
• 77% were permitted or expected to have their phones out at work

Motivations for having phones out / frequently checking them

1. We asked “How many notifications do you feel you missed because you weren’t paying attention to your phone or it wasn’t in your hand?”

• Never missed a thing : 20%
• A dozen or so : 50%
• Way too many to keep track of : 30%

2. We asked “If you choose not to keep your personal phone out in front of you or very close by during the day, why not?”

Of these, only 17% referenced the phone as being a distraction on its own. Over 64% were more concerned with how others would perceive them if they had their phone out at work. In other words, phone behavior for an individual was more guided by how the phone made her feel than whether it distracted her. We feel this exemplifies an internal conflict that women have: they can have their phones out (and may even need to have them out), but they often CHOOSE not to do so.

• I feel it is inappropriate / impolite to have my personal mobile phone out around others 19.4%
• I work with clients / customers and I do not want them to feel I am not focused on them 18.4%
• I work with clients / customers and I do not want it to interrupt us 14.5%
• My boss / colleagues frown on having our personal phones visible 13.5%
• I find it distracting 10.6%
• I have other ways of getting notifications so I am not concerned about missing something 9.7%
• I find it too tempting (I would check it too often) 6.7%

3. We asked two follow up questions: “select all the places where you generally feel it is inappropriate / impolite for OTHERS to have their phones out” and then the follow up question “select all the places where you generally feel it is inappropriate / impolite for YOU to have your phone out”

Responses:

The results were very similar to each other and revealed that women feel less comfortable with phones being out in situations in which a face-to-face encounter was occurring.

How do they deal with it ? Current behaviors..

1. 48.9% of them slightly agree or strongly agree that they need to ‘unplug’ from time to time

2. Even when they want to concentrate or can’t check their phones, overwhelming majority of them still want to be contacted by friends and family (80.3%) and be notified for time sensitive or critical things that impact their possessions such as cars, and home (54.9%).

3. We asked “How do you manage incoming notifications when you need to concentrate or when it is inconvenient to check your phone?”

Over 55% disconnected themselves completely, with only 13% using the selective phone settings to turn off specific notifications. These reflect the simplest options on a phone: turn it off and/or put it away.

• I put my phone on mute/Do Not Disturb mode 44.0%
• I put my phone away 19.0%
• I prevent that from happening by selectively turn off notifications in Settings 13.0%
• Notifications don’t bother me in those situations 16.5%

But this binary mode isn’t a good solution to managing notifications for people who do care. Why?

· Being disconnected creates anxiety (most women have someone or something depending on them that relies on phone connectivity to reach her)

· The list of notifications may be long and difficult to manage when she returns to her phone. It is not prioritized in any way.

· She has to do something with the notifications she has missed when she returns to her phone on an app by app basis.