Revisiting and Reinventing Email Export

@article{citeulike:212495, abstract = {Email is the most successful computer application yet invented. It is used by millions of people to carry out their business each day. Over the last 10 years email has become ubiquitous in the home, too, and it is often the reason for purchasing a home computer (Kraut et al., 2000). It has changed the way that people work, and the ways that organizations operate; many types of collaborative work would be unthinkable without it (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). Various reasons have been put forward for email's success. Unlike face to face communication, its affordances free participants from the constraints of space and time – allowing senders and recipients to communicate at times and in places that are convenient to each (Clark and Brennan, 1991, Sproull and Kiesler, 1991, Kraut and Attewell, 1997). Another significant property is its malleability. Studies of email usage have repeatedly documented the striking number of different purposes to which it is put: email can support conversations, operate as a task manager, document delivery system, archive, and contact manager - to name but a few (Bellotti et al., 1993, Mackay, 1988, Whittaker et al., 2002a, Whittaker and Sidner, 1996). And at a technical level, it operates using a highly simple protocol. Yet some of these same success factors contribute to the problems that are now endemic in email. Users complain about the sheer number of messages they receive, they complain about the number of irrelevant spam messages that they get sent, and they complain that email doesn't provide direct support for the tasks they use it for (Bellotti et al., 1993, Whittaker et al., 2002a, Venolia et al., 2001, Whittaker and Sidner, 1996). These are important problems, not simply as a technological challenge. Solving them could have significant effects on general productivity because so much knowledge work is now channeled through email. Yet despite its success and these problems, one paradox is how little email has changed in the last few years. Early text based systems were replaced by graphical user interfaces, but aside from a few minor modifications (attachments, HTML integration, folders and address books), today's systems are remarkably similar to those introduced 15 years ago. The goal of this special issue is not to address this paradox, but rather to present work that begins to tackle email's problems. We start with a short summary of what research has been done over those last 15 years to set the stage for the contributions of this special issue, and conclude with some speculation about what we see as being important future trends and questions.}, author = {Whittaker, Steve and Bellotti, Victoria and Moody, Paul}, citeulike-article-id = {212495}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://hci-journal.com/editorial/vol-20.html}, journal = {HCI Special Issue on Email}, keywords = {email, pim}, posted-at = {2005-05-27 05:36:30}, priority = {0}, title = {Revisiting and Reinventing Email}, url = {http://hci-journal.com/editorial/vol-20.html}, volume = {20} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:212495 L3 - citeulike-article-id:212495 N2 - Email is the most successful computer application yet invented. It is used by millions of people to carry out their business each day. Over the last 10 years email has become ubiquitous in the home, too, and it is often the reason for purchasing a home computer (Kraut et al., 2000). It has changed the way that people work, and the ways that organizations operate; many types of collaborative work would be unthinkable without it (Sproull and Kiesler, 1991). Various reasons have been put forward for email’s success. Unlike face to face communication, its affordances free participants from the constraints of space and time – allowing senders and recipients to communicate at times and in places that are convenient to each (Clark and Brennan, 1991, Sproull and Kiesler, 1991, Kraut and Attewell, 1997). Another significant property is its malleability. Studies of email usage have repeatedly documented the striking number of different purposes to which it is put: email can support conversations, operate as a task manager, document delivery system, archive, and contact manager - to name but a few (Bellotti et al., 1993, Mackay, 1988, Whittaker et al., 2002a, Whittaker and Sidner, 1996). And at a technical level, it operates using a highly simple protocol. Yet some of these same success factors contribute to the problems that are now endemic in email. Users complain about the sheer number of messages they receive, they complain about the number of irrelevant spam messages that they get sent, and they complain that email doesn’t provide direct support for the tasks they use it for (Bellotti et al., 1993, Whittaker et al., 2002a, Venolia et al., 2001, Whittaker and Sidner, 1996). These are important problems, not simply as a technological challenge. Solving them could have significant effects on general productivity because so much knowledge work is now channeled through email. Yet despite its success and these problems, one paradox is how little email has changed in the last few years. Early text based systems were replaced by graphical user interfaces, but aside from a few minor modifications (attachments, HTML integration, folders and address books), today’s systems are remarkably similar to those introduced 15 years ago. The goal of this special issue is not to address this paradox, but rather to present work that begins to tackle email’s problems. We start with a short summary of what research has been done over those last 15 years to set the stage for the contributions of this special issue, and conclude with some speculation about what we see as being important future trends and questions. JF - HCI Special Issue on Email TI - Revisiting and Reinventing Email VL - 20 KW - email KW - pim AU - Whittaker, Steve AU - Bellotti, Victoria AU - Moody, Paul UR - http://hci-journal.com/editorial/vol-20.html ER -