RE: Interruptions (issue 47)

From: Gregg C Vanderheiden [mailto:greggvan@umd.edu]
Sent: Wednesday, January 25, 2017 2:45 PM

Does playing a video or animation at the opening of a page (or say 3-4 seconds) count as an interruption?

or only something that happens in the midst of using the page?

[Jason] Adding to Gregg’s excellent questions: if the video or animation does not replace other content on the page or prevent interaction with it (i.e., the user could ignore it and continue whatever they were doing), does it qualify as an interruption? It would certainly qualify as a potential distraction, but I don’t think interruptions and distractions are the same thing. A modal dialog would surely be an interruption, as it changes the focus and prevents the user from interacting with other controls on the page until it’s dismissed. However, I’m not sure what else would qualify. A modal dialog that appears other than in response to a user’s action would seem to be a paradigm case of what this proposal is meant to address.
I think “emergency” is too restrictive an exception here. Suppose there’s a modal dialog that appears when you have five minutes remaining to complete a time-sensitive task. I don’t think that’s an emergency (at least not in the usual sense), and that we need an exception for time-dependent activities where completing the activity by a deadline is essential to it.


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