A number of studies have explored issues of interruption and availability in workplace environments, but few have examined how attitudes toward availability play out in home life. In this paper, we begin to explore factors in the home that might be useful for signaling availability to close friends and family. In particular, we use the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to measure subjects' current activities and self-reported availability to interruption. Based on follow-up interviews, we develop a number of hypotheses that we test through a hierarchical linear regression analysis. Results indicate that individual differences, certain home locations, and leisure activities play an important role in determining patterns of availability. This study has implications for the development of CSCW systems with automatic sensing of activity to deal with interruption and activity recognition both inside and out of the home.
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