Ambient Notification Environments

Direct notifications are on the exponential rise. In our time, numerous personal computing devices and applications vie for limited attention, racing to deliver large amounts of information to us. This often results in users being overwhelmed by notifications and interruptions to their regular schedule, to whom a complete avoidance of technology seems to be the only viable option. In other words, the current approach for notification delivery is unsustainable and will not scale. In the Dagstuhl Seminar 17161 “Ambient Notification Environments” we brought together experts from different fields related to smart homes, ambient intelligence, human-computer interaction, activity recognition, and psychology to discuss a potential alternative approach: ambient notifications. We explored how ambient notifications can support people in their daily activities, by providing relevant information that are contextually embedded in the environment. The objective is to facilitate unobtrusive access to information at the right time and in the right place, hence reducing the disruptions and annoyances that are commonly associated with direct notifications. In this report, we present the numerous ideas and concepts of how the research community could strive toward towards realising ambient notifications. This is based on the presentations and activities conducted during the seminar. Overall, the community is in agreement that current approaches to notifications will not scale and that ambient notifications are a potential solution