Interruptibility estimation of office worker and mediation of remote communication

Internet technology and ubiquitous environment have a great potential on assisting human activities by promptly providing required information to them. On the other hand, frequent and uncontrolled requirement of communications with email and short messenger will sometimes decrease workers' intelligent productivities by interrupting their current works.
     In tele-communication environment, it has been reported that a shortage of communication is one of the most important issues. Instead of completely blocking communication requirement, encouraging communication is rather expected.
     Therefore, it is desired to encourage tele-communication within workers without possibilities of disturbing their intelligent activities. In order to achieve that, an appropriate mediation of interruptions in accordance with workers' state is needed.
     We are working on

(1) Development of the estimation method of each worker’s interruptibility (which is the subjective degree of the extent to which a user can accept an interruption) based on PC activities such as key inputs, conversation status, a location of head, and others

(2) Communication facilitation by sharing estimated each worker’s interruptibility

(3) Development of the automatic meditation method of tele-communication (e.g., email) based on worker’s interruptibility.