Designing calmworklight: Signaling Focus with a Desk Light

Published in ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2019

Recommended citation: Semra Gulce Turan, Silas Ramsoe Ozaltin, and Asim Evren Yantac. (2019). "Designing calmworklight: Signaling Focus with a Desk Light." ACM SIGCHI Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019. http://gulcest.github.io/files/turan-2019.pdf

Abstract

While working, we are not always in line with our ability to focus. Being more mindful of own cognitive abilities, including the ability to focus, may contribute to a more pleasant work experience. This paper presents calmworklight, an initial design proposal for dealing with this issue. calmworklight is a desktop lamp that responds to changes in peoples’ focus strength as captured by a commercially available EEG device. The lamp’s expression depends solely on the user’s level of focus. If it is strong, the lamp returns a steady, calming warm light. If not, the light emission follows a breathing pattern, aiming to encourage the user to be more mindful of their breath and to cultivate a meditative focus. We conducted 3 user studies to get a better understanding of calmworklight’s usage and benefits. The most striking outcome of the study is the worker’s need for a regulating system that helps them plan when to socialize and when to focus, which should be considered for future workplace designs.

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ACM Ref: Semra Gulce Turan, Silas Ramsoe Ozaltin, and Asim Evren Yantac. 2019. Designing calmworklight: Signaling Focus with a Desk Light. In Companion Publication of the 2019 on Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2019 Companion (DIS ‘19 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 301–305. DOI:https://doi.org/10.1145/3301019.3323907