Do Users Have Contextual Preferencesfor Smartphone Power Management?

Smartphones must balance power and performance. While most smartphones offer a power-saving mode, they typically provide a binary choice between full performance and monolithic performance degradation (e.g., reducing both screen brightness and processing speed) to save power. Could smartphones improve the user experience by automatically degrading only selected features based on the usage context? To gauge whether preferences for power-saving strategies vary by context, we conducted a 304-participant, survey-based experiment. Each participant was assigned a context (e.g., navigation) and degradation level. They viewed a series of side-by-side simulations of one smartphone operating normally in that context and another operating with reduced GPS accuracy, processing speed, or screen brightness. Participants rated their willingness to accept each tradeoff to save power. Contrasting current power-saving modes, we found that participants’ preferences did indeed vary by context. Using factor analysis to cluster preferences, we identified key personas that pave the way toward context-aware and self-aware alternatives to smartphone power-saving modes.