FlowLight aims to help your workflow

You are working in an office, about to re-focus on a task after taking a 15 minute break. Then something pokes your attention — a text, Skype, your colleague or a knock on the door. Re-focusing is not as easy as it seems. 

Unexpected interruptions at work have become one of the biggest issues for office workers and students who utilize shared offices. In these situations, research has shown that interruptions not only cost a lot of time, but also lead to more mistakes when coming back to a task.

A research group — led by the UBC computer scientist Dr. Thomas Fritz and his PhD students Manuela Züger and André Meyer — has taken a significant step towards solving this problem by inventing a device called FlowLight.  

FlowLight is a ping-pong ball-sized light that connects to your computer. The underlying algorithm tracks the keyboard and mouse interactions and predicts your “interruptibility.” The color of the light then changes between green, red or pulsing red to signal that you are either available, busy or super engaged.

The algorithm can also mute apps like Skype or Google Hangouts.

Fritz pointed out that people have been trying to solve the interruptibility problem themselves, even before FlowLight. “We’ve seen people that actually put construction pylons on their desk for an hour of their day, close the office door, turn off the lights or put their headphones on,” he said.   

But all of these manual solutions are cumbersome to maintain — they are easy to forget and can be interruptions themselves. FlowLight, in contrast, does not require supervision and is automatic. 

The project started at the University of Zurich as a collaboration with international robotics company ABB before Fritz moved to UBC. FlowLight was tested by employees at the company and was warmly received. To the researchers’ amazement, the light not only reduced interruptions, but also inspired the users’ motivation.  

Imagining a user’s response to seeing their light on green (available), Fritz said, “Oh my God, I’m on green and really not focusing that much. I think it’s totally true so I should work harder.”  

“[FlowLight] promotes self-awareness.”

Next, the inventors plan to improve the accuracy of prediction, which will make the device more applicable to jobs not involving much keyboard or mouse action. Commercialization is also on the way. 

Fritz shared some behind-the-scenes stories with The Ubyssey. Two of the initial challenges were concerns over privacy invasions and promotion of unnecessary competition among fellow workers.  

“A manager might look over ... and say, ‘oh you are never on red,’” said Fritz.

To solve the competition problem, FlowLight was programmed to only turn red (busy) for a maximum of nine per cent each day. The red busy signal is now a rare period that users have to enter wisely, instead of a state they have to maintain. 

To ensure privacy, all data is saved on users’ local computers and not shared with anyone. An application displays everything FlowLight tracks and is easy to stop or uninstall.  

When the worries were settled, the light immediately became a blast. Some users liked the light so much that they modified it to a spooky figure for Halloween. 

When asked about his deeper motivations, Fritz mentioned his desire to change how products are designed. Many efforts try to improve the quality of products by concentrating on the products themselves, but he wants to take a different approach. 

“I really want to focus on the human,” he said.  

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