Mitigating distractions during online reading: An explorative study

Reading online can be difficult due to the distractions of digital environments. In this paper we present a user study in which participants' eye gaze was recorded as they read text in a visually distracting environment. We explore two distraction mitigation signals using real-time eye gaze data to investigate whether the effects help reduce distraction rate as well as aid recovery from distractions. These signals involved adding a signal to the last word read before a distraction occurred to show the reader where they were up to. We compared these experimental conditions on both first (L1) and second (L2) English language readers and for easy and difficult to read texts. The results demonstrate that the mitigation signals helped recovery from a distraction by drawing participants' attention back to the text as well as indicating from where to recommence reading. We conclude with recommendations on implementing distraction mitigation signals in text.