Eliminate PopUp’s – You Don’t Need Them
Eliminate PopUp’s – You Don’t Need Them!!
A popup in the context of messaging is used as an alert to inform people they have a new message.
Collaborative tools, email & chat mechanisms use popups as strategies to ensure their messages get read.
People feel obligated to reply or are curious as to what the message contains, so they log on or open up the tool, chat or email platform – the ultimate goal of the popup.
The rise of instant communication relies on capturing the attention of the reader.
In recent years the number of messaging & chat systems has ballooned with more than 3 billion people using messaging systems & apps.
At an organisational level the additional of collaborative technologies to email & chats platforms with Teams, Workspace, Slack, Zoom & other chat collaboration platforms have seen an additional increase on messaging.
We are handling more messages & being distracted – even more if you have popups!
The biggest impact however is the instantaneous nature – the speed at which a response is sought & the increased expectation that the message has been read, promptly.
The increase in chat systems, has seen chat platforms adopt different strategies to capture the reader’s attention to support this.
Enter popup notifications.
Purely designed to capture readers attention, create an instant need for a response & have users spend more time in the platform, distracting your time.
Recently, on a few straw polls with colleagues – we asked why do you use chats & collaboration tools vs emails?
The response : If I need to capture their attention & get them to do something straight away I send a chat vs an email – I have more instant success with a chat.
Popups are a major distraction.
- They compound the pressure to read the message.
- They build a level of curiosity – I received a message – what’s in it?
- Popups are designed to grab your attention & distract you.
- They are designed for you to feel obligated to reply to the message.
The distraction will break your state of workflow & research shows can take up to 23 minutes for you to refocus on what you were doing beforehand.
Popup statistics show that:
- The average messaging system user can receive 50-100 popups a day
- Mobile device popup conversion rates for work chats are highest
How many times a day do you click on chat message popups?
The number of popups, potential for distraction & amount of time wasted to re-focus rings significant alarm bells for any leader.
Anyone susceptible to popup distractions could be in a state of low productivity for up to 2 hours or more of the working day instead of focusing on their main priorities.
Leaders should take the lead on popups!
Get rid of them! Retake control of potential distractions from messages to improve team performance & quality of work.
Popup distractions are one of the larger barriers to performance in the workplace.
A recent survey covering workplace productivity found that the main reasons for this were:
- 52% of people had email and chat popups enabled
- All of which has compounded with collaborative technologies
- People in the workplace continuously check their devices for popups
- People with popups enabled were unable to fully concentrate on the task at hand because they were subconsciously focused on their next popup alerts.
- People were unable to string together a meaningful period of workflow since they were constantly being distracted by popups.
To be successful, individuals need to recognise that they should not let anyone else but themselves control their workflow. They must stay in control of their workflow.
Enabling popup alerts allows others to divert their attention from their area of focus.
Don’t let others control your time and divert your focus.
What are some solutions to avoid the distraction of popups?
- Turn off popups for incoming chat messages, collaborations & emails
- Only check messages at times that work for you
- Adopt the same policy for professional & private messaging
Given that it takes up to 23 minutes for individuals to get back into the focus / work zone after being distracted, it is easy to see how not dealing with popups as a distraction affects performance.
Hit the Popup on the head & never be distracted by them!!
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