The Collaborative Nature of Interruption Handling

Interruptions have become an indispensible and ubiquitous part of multi-project knowledge work. While most existing studies analyze the effects of interruptions from the perspective of the interrupted individual, in this paper I propose to interpret task interruptions as events that are embedded in a rich social context. Handling interruptions therefore becomes a collective activity that depends on the interplay of a variety of actors. Interruption planning and task resumption are portrayed as collaborative processes: the paper presents six corresponding design guidelines for organizational and technological support. By the example of three prototypes, different possibilities to support knowledge workers in handling interruptions are discussed and put to the test.