Diversity in the use of electronic mail: a preliminary inquiry

This paper describes a series of interviews that examine the ways that professional office workers use electronic mail to manage their daily work. The purpose is to generate hypotheses for future research. A number of implications for the design of flexible mail systems are discussed. Two principal claims are made. First, the use of electronic mail is strikingly diverse, although not infinitely so. Individuals vary both in objective measures of mail use and in preferred strategies for managing work electronically. Feelings of control are similarly diverse and are related to the size of the user's inbox, numbers of folders, and subscriptions to distribution lists. This diversity implies that one's own experiences with electronic mail are unlikely to provide sufficient understanding of other's uses of mail. Mail designers should thus seek flexible primitives that capture the important dimensions of use and provide flexibility for a wide range of users. The second claim is that electronic mail is more than just a communication system. Users archive messages for subject retrieval, prioritize messages to sequence work activities, and delegate tasks via mail. A taxonomy of work management is proposed in which mail is used for information management, time management, and task management activities. Directions for future research are suggested.