Supporting Software Developers' Focused Work on Window-Based Desktops

Abstract

Software developers, like other information workers, continuously switch tasks and applications to complete their work on their computer. Given the high fragmentation and complexity of their work, staying focused on the relevant pieces of information can become quite challenging in today's windowbased environments, especially with the ever increasing monitor screen-size. To support developers in staying focused, we conducted a formative study with 18 professionals in which we examined their computer based and eye-gaze interaction with the window environment and devised a relevance model of open windows. Based on the results, we developed a prototype to dim irrelevant windows and reduce distractions, and evaluated it in a user study. Our results indicate that our model was able to predict relevant open windows with high accuracy and participants felt that integrating visual prominence into the desktop environment reduces clutter and distraction, which results in reduced window switching and an increase in focus.

Using Logs Data to Identify When Software Engineers Experience Flow or Focused Work

“…In the literature there are many examples of approaches taken to facilitate or encourage focused work. Such approaches include designing interfaces with minimal visual clutter to support focused work [29], blocking or reducing websites unrelated to work [19,38], and supporting self-tracking to reflect on time spent and minimize distractions [15]. Additionally, there has been an increase in the development of time management tools that promote continuous work [18,32].…”

Sources of software development task friction

“…For example, Minelli et al (2015a) found that developers spent 14% of their time "fiddling with the UI" to organize windows within their IDEs. With the addition of eye tracking, Pilzer et al (2020) found that developers switched between windows every 16 seconds. Developers need to open and switch between numerous windows because a single code feature or concern is often spread across multiple artifacts each requiring its own dedicated window (Robillard and Murphy, 2007).…”