Towards Notifications in the Era of the Internet of Things

Today, the smartphone is the main device for notifying the user, for example, about incoming messages or upcoming appointments. However, we envision that in the near future Internet of Things (IoT) devices will become an additional source of notifications. The resulting increase in notifications needs to be tackled to allow users to perceive all notifications without overloading them. In this paper, we report on two focus groups exploring how notifications in the era of the Internet of Things could be visualized. We derive design implications from the results of the focus groups which could influence how in the future smart devices notify users.