Cognitive load in smartphone calendar applications

Sammanfattning: The use of smartphone applications has increased dramatically in the last decade. With the technology being ubiquitous around us it is important to reduce the required cognitive demand for interacting with the technology. A common use of smartphones is calendar applications. This paper investigates if cognitive load can be lowered by using a calendar application specifically designed with cognitive load in mind compared to the widely used Google Calendar. The hypothesis is that the application will generate a lower cognitive load in comparison. An experiment was conducted where participants were instructed to perform a primary task by following given instructions of what to do in the calendar application while also performing a secondary task. There were no significant differences in performance except for two tasks where the new app performed worse. Participants also reported a higher level of frustration for the new app which could mean that their cognitive load was slightly higher.