AR-Cues Change Users' Strategy for Dealing with Deferrable Interruptions

When given the opportunity, people tend to try to reach coarse breakpoints for work interruptions. Coarse breakpoints are frequently associated with less effort when resuming the task. We investigated how supporting task resumption with augmented reality (AR)-cues affects this behavior. In a mixed factorial experiment, 50 participants performed a physical sorting task that included deferrable interruptions with varying distances to a coarse breakpoint, either with or without an AR-cue indicating the next correct step after interruption. Participants with AR-cue accepted interruptions at fine breakpoints more frequently than those without a cue, except when the coarse breakpoint was one step away, and reported less stress. Our findings indicate that AR-cues attenuate but do not eliminate the need for specific task resumption strategies, such as reaching a coarse breakpoint, and reduce the stress. Considering AR-cues for task resumption may be particularly beneficial for time-critical interruptions and fast-paced work environments.