Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences

Laura  Lascau; Sandy J J Gould; Anna L. Cox; Elizaveta Karmannaya; Duncan P. Brumby

doi:10.1145/3290605.3300649

Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences

Laura Lascau, Sandy J J Gould, Anna L. Cox, Elizaveta Karmannaya, Duncan P. Brumby

Computer Science

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

8 Citations (Scopus)

1403 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Crowdworkers receive no formal training for managing their tasks, time or working environment. To develop tools that support such workers, an understanding of their preferences and the constraints they are under is essential. We asked 317 experienced Amazon Mechanical Turk workers about factors that influence their task and time management. We found that a large number of the crowdworkers score highly on a measure of polychronicity; this means that they prefer to frequently switch tasks and happily accommodate regular work and non-work interruptions. While a preference for polychronicity might equip people well to deal with the structural demands of crowdworking platforms, we also know that multitasking negatively affects workers’ productivity. This puts crowdworkers’ working preferences into conflict with the desire of requesters to maximize workers’ productivity. Combining the findings of prior research with the new knowledge obtained from our participants, we enumerate practical design options that could enable workers, requesters and platform developers to make adjustments that would improve crowdworkers’ experiences.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019)
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)
Number of pages	14
ISBN (Electronic)	978-1-4503-5970-2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300649
Publication status	Published - 2 May 2019
Event	ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019) - Glasgow, United Kingdom Duration: 4 May 2019 → 9 May 2019

Publication series

Name	Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings

Conference

Conference	ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019)
Country/Territory	United Kingdom
City	Glasgow
Period	4/05/19 → 9/05/19

Keywords

Crowdsourcing
Crowdwork
Amazon Mechanical Turk
Multitasking
Polychronicity
Productivity

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10.1145/3290605.3300649Licence: None: All rights reserved

Laura_Lascau_et_al_Monotasking_or_multitasking_CHI_2019_2019
Checked for eligibility: 25/03/2019 © Owner/Author 2019. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in CHI '19 Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300649.
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Cite this

Lascau, L., Gould, S. J. J., Cox, A. L., Karmannaya, E., & Brumby, D. P. (2019). Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019) Article 419 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300649

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abstract = "Crowdworkers receive no formal training for managing their tasks, time or working environment. To develop tools that support such workers, an understanding of their preferences and the constraints they are under is essential. We asked 317 experienced Amazon Mechanical Turk workers about factors that influence their task and time management. We found that a large number of the crowdworkers score highly on a measure of polychronicity; this means that they prefer to frequently switch tasks and happily accommodate regular work and non-work interruptions. While a preference for polychronicity might equip people well to deal with the structural demands of crowdworking platforms, we also know that multitasking negatively affects workers{\textquoteright} productivity. This puts crowdworkers{\textquoteright} working preferences into conflict with the desire of requesters to maximize workers{\textquoteright} productivity. Combining the findings of prior research with the new knowledge obtained from our participants, we enumerate practical design options that could enable workers, requesters and platform developers to make adjustments that would improve crowdworkers{\textquoteright} experiences. ",

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author = "Laura Lascau and Gould, {Sandy J J} and Cox, {Anna L.} and Elizaveta Karmannaya and Brumby, {Duncan P.}",

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Lascau, L, Gould, SJJ, Cox, AL, Karmannaya, E & Brumby, DP 2019, Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences. in Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019)., 419, Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings, Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019), Glasgow, United Kingdom, 4/05/19. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300649

Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences. / Lascau, Laura ; Gould, Sandy J J; Cox, Anna L. et al.
Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2019). Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), 2019. 419 (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Proceedings).

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference contribution

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Monotasking or multitasking: designing for crowdworkers’ preferences

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Keywords

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