Considering user limitations in UI design
Multi tasking is a modern trend where we try to mentally manage two or more tasks simultaneously with the belief that we are optimizing productivity. For instance, we might be checking emails, while also filling in an excel spreadsheet, reading the news, and chatting to co-workers about internal changes, all at the same time. This might be a typical work day for most people. At home, media overloads the multi tasking experience even more with people often watching TV while browsing numerous websites on their laptop and texting a friend on their phone. This kind of behavior has become so commonplace in our society today that most people would agree they do this, and most would also defend their ability to manage multiple things going on at the same time. But they're be wrong.
The term "multi tasking" came about from the computing industry back in the 1960's to refer to the ability of a microprocessor to process several tasks at the same time. It wasn't until 1998 that humans started adapting the word to themselves. So it is a very new concept and an even newer practice for human beings. Sure, human beings have always had the capacity to handle several things at once since the time of hunter gatherers. Mothers would pick berries while feeding their infants, or preparing food while keeping an eye on their children. Because of this need, we developed part of our brain known as the prefrontal cortex. This front lobe of our brain conducts orchestrates our focus by helping us ignore distractions and switch from task to task. But nowadays it seems our assuredness in our ability has surpassed the ability itself. If you ever have tried to type a message to a friend on a computer while someone else talks to you in person, you have experienced this. Our minds tune out the voice and while we can pretend we are paying attention, we will most likely have to ask them to repeat themselves.
The way the prefrontal lobe works is that it can only process one thing at a time, but it can switch between two tasks very rapidly. We can do more than one thing seemingly at the same time, but in reality we are ordering them and deciding which to do at that specific time. However the negative side to switching from task back and forth again and again is that it takes about one minute to recover our train of thought, breaking our concentration and making us unfocused. For full concentration on one task to be reestablished, it can take fifteen minutes! In this mode we are only capable of superficially scraping the surface. This in turn is more counter productive than anything else. Nowadays the speed and amount that we multi task has exploded due to technology. Software often requires us to think about multiple things at the same time. For example, if the predictive text feature on your mobile phone is correctly amending what you are writing as you write it, you are forced to pay attention to two very similar tasks. And if the tasks are too similar they compete for the same space in the brain, and you mentally can't focus on both at the same time. Yet if one task is something more automatic or highly practiced like walking or breathing, we can do another conscious task simultaneously as we require very little processing to perform the first function.
Multi tasking is very popular these days. It hints at productivity. It seemingly allows us to split our attention. This makes the work become less tedious. While this practice can be easy to fall into, we should avoid it as it will take us longer to accomplish any one task, not to mention the quality will most likely fail. Even more importantly, the brain needs time to recover between switching between tasks to gather its thoughts. Without this time, the individual will be over stimulated and quickly become stressed out with all of the effort they are giving to multiple tasks. Too much multi tasking can condition the brain to an overexcited state which makes it hard to focus even when you want to. This makes for unhappy, unproductive and exhausted workers.
We should respect the way our mind works and work in a similar fashion. From a UX perspective, we can design software, websites and all digital interfaces to minimize distraction and focus the user's attention to one task at a time. This means we can't have all the tools in the toolbox in front of us when we work. We can give our users more of a holding hand as they are guided through a clear workflow that helps them accomplish one task, and then another... and another. One at a time, considering what communication and information is really worthy of interrupting our precious concentration and when we should seek out new data.
One way we can trick our brain is to multi task tasks that don't share attentional resources, like using different sensory inputs. Like visual and auditory, which can work together without interfering at times. One example is a chart that has supporting sounds to reinforce the direction of movement of the graph, which helps reinforce understanding. There is the potential for tapping into our user's various senses to help them quickly understand what they are seeing, as well as helping them focus, and in turn be more productive.Simplifying a user's workflow and limit what the users can do at one time, together with our various sensory systems may be the key to creating interfaces that are designed with the user in mind, a human being.