research-article

Am I wasting my time organizing email?: a study of email refinding

Authors:

Steve Whittaker,

Julian Cerruti,

Hernan Badenes,

John TangAuthors Info & Claims

CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Pages 3449 - 3458

https://doi.org/10.1145/1978942.1979457

Published: 07 May 2011 Publication History

Abstract

We all spend time every day looking for information in our email, yet we know little about this refinding process. Some users expend considerable preparatory effort creating complex folder structures to promote effective refinding. However modern email clients provide alternative opportunistic methods for access, such as search and threading, that promise to reduce the need to manually prepare. To compare these different refinding strategies, we instrumented a modern email client that supports search, folders, tagging and threading. We carried out a field study of 345 long-term users who conducted over 85,000 refinding actions. Our data support opportunistic access. People who create complex folders indeed rely on these for retrieval, but these preparatory behaviors are inefficient and do not improve retrieval success. In contrast, both search and threading promote more effective finding. We present design implications: current search-based clients ignore scrolling, the most prevalent refinding behavior, and threading approaches need to be extended.

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Cited By

Park SVishwabhan SMuller MKarger D(2024)“I Really Need Your Help with This Work...”: A System for Navigating the Tricky Terrain of Managing Up by Leveraging One’s Motivation to Get Things DoneACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/365260331:4(1-36)Online publication date: 19-Sep-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3652603
Jones WCapra RCzerwinski MDinneen JGwizdka JKaradkar U(2024)PIM 2024: The Information We Need, When We Need It…: As We Get Ever Closer, Is this Ideal Still Ideal?Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638333(438-440)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638333
Dix A(2024)The future of PIM: pragmatics and potentialHuman–Computer Interaction10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155(1-28)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155
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Index Terms

Am I wasting my time organizing email?: a study of email refinding
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI '11: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 2011

3530 pages

ISBN:9781450302289

DOI:10.1145/1978942

General Chair:
Desney Tan
Microsoft Research
,
Program Chairs:
Geraldine Fitzpatrick
Vienna University of Technology
,
Carl Gutwin
University of Saskatchewan
,
Bo Begole
PARC
,
Wendy A. Kellogg
IBM Research

Copyright © 2011 ACM.

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Published: 07 May 2011

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CHI '11: CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

May 7 - 12, 2011

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CHI '11 Paper Acceptance Rate 410 of 1,532 submissions, 27%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 6,199 of 26,314 submissions, 24%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3652603
Jones WCapra RCzerwinski MDinneen JGwizdka JKaradkar U(2024)PIM 2024: The Information We Need, When We Need It…: As We Get Ever Closer, Is this Ideal Still Ideal?Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638333(438-440)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638333
Dix A(2024)The future of PIM: pragmatics and potentialHuman–Computer Interaction10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155(1-28)Online publication date: 25-Jun-2024
https://doi.org/10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155
Skjæveland MBalog KBernard NŁajewska WLinjordet T(2024)An ecosystem for personal knowledge graphs: A survey and research roadmapAI Open10.1016/j.aiopen.2024.01.0035(55-69)Online publication date: 2024
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Lascău LBrumby DGould SCox A(2023)“Sometimes It’s Like Putting the Track in Front of the Rushing Train”: Having to Be ‘On Call’ for Work Limits the Temporal Flexibility of CrowdworkersACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/363514531:2(1-45)Online publication date: 4-Dec-2023
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Bergman OGradovitch N(2023)Collecting streaming music increases listening enjoymentPersonal and Ubiquitous Computing10.1007/s00779-023-01729-w27:6(2147-2159)Online publication date: 8-Jun-2023
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Adekunle PAigabvboa CThwala WAkinradewo OOke A(2022)Challenges confronting construction information managementFrontiers in Built Environment10.3389/fbuil.2022.10756748Online publication date: 19-Dec-2022
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Epstein DLiu FMonroy-Hernández AWang D(2022)Revisiting Piggyback Prototyping: Examining Benefits and Tradeoffs in Extending Existing Social Computing SystemsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35555576:CSCW2(1-28)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2022
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Bendersky MWang XNajork MMetzler DSelcuk Candan KLiu HAkoglu LLuna Dong XTang J(2022)Search and Discovery in Personal Email CollectionsProceedings of the Fifteenth ACM International Conference on Web Search and Data Mining10.1145/3488560.3501393(1617-1619)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2022
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