Visualizing Power Mode: The Impact of Battery-saving Indicators on User Behavior During Intensive Mobile Interactions

The ubiquitous mobile devices have made balancing battery efficiency and user experience (UX) a critical issue. While prior work has extensively researched battery-saving strategies by managing computational resources, the design of user interface (UI) that communicates battery-saving status with users remains underexplored. In this work, we investigate how different visual representations of battery-saving indicators influence user behavior during intensive mobile interactions. We designed three versions of UI indicators for battery saving, with varying levels of statistical details. Through a between-subjects user study with 36 participants completing a series of intensive tasks on a mobile phone with limited battery, we examined behavioral and perceptual patterns across study conditions. Our findings showed that real-time saving statistics improved battery-saving efficiency and mitigated negative user experience under moderate performance degradation. However, when performance drops sharply, the same indicators may bring frustration and lead users to quickly turn off the saver. Our post-study interviews further revealed the strategic choices made by participants to optimize task completion while saving batteries. With the lessons learned, we discuss the implications of designing visual indicators for battery-saving mode in different interaction scenarios, and propose future directions for building sustainable battery-saving interfaces.