Understanding the whethers, hows, and whys of divisible interfaces

Users are increasingly shifting from interacting with a single, personal computer to interacting across multiple, heterogeneous devices. We present results from a pair of studies investigating specifically how and why users might divide an application's interface across devices in private, semi-private, and public environments. Our results suggest that users are interested in dividing interfaces in all of these environments. While the types of divisions and reasons for dividing varied across users and environments, common themes were that users divided interfaces to improve interaction, to share information, and to balance usability and privacy. Based on our results, we present implications for the design of divisible interfaces.