Reducing Cognitive Load by Using the Periphery of our Attention

Going to the cinema, watching a movie and thereby eating popcorn is an enjoyable event. Nobody would consider watching the movie and eating popcorn as cumbersome or exhausting multitasking. This is due to our capabilities of carrying out small, well trained tasks (like eating) in parallel. However, when interacting with digital devices, we hardly use this skill and have to switch our focus and attention even for marginal tasks. As solution we propose peripheral interaction, which aims at moving small tasks to the periphery and thereby reducing the cognitive load caused by them.