Ilo, CoryDiVerdi, StephenBowman, Douglas A.2024-11-042024-11-042024-10-07https://hdl.handle.net/10919/121533While virtual reality (VR) offers immersive experiences, users need to remain aware of notifications from outside VR. However, inserting notifications into a VR experience can result in distraction or breaks in presence, since existing notification systems in VR use static placement and lack situational awareness. We address this challenge by introducing a novel notification placement technique, Goldilocks Zoning (GZ), which leverages a 360-degree heatmap generated using gaze data to place notifications near salient areas of the environment without obstructing the primary task. To investigate the effectiveness of this technique, we conducted a dualtask experiment comparing GZ to common notification placement techniques. We found that GZ had similar performance to state-ofthe- art techniques in a variety of primary task scenarios. Our study reveals that no single technique is universally optimal in dynamic settings, underscoring the potential for adaptive approaches to notification management. As a step in this direction, we explored the potential to use machine learning to predict the task based on the gaze heatmap.application/pdfenCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 InternationalArticle - Refereed2024-11-01The author(s)https://doi.org/10.1145/3677386.3682087