Taking Email to Task: The Design and Evaluation of a Task Management Centered Email Tool Victoria Bellotti, Nicolas Ducheneaut, Mark Howard, Ian Smith Palo Alto Research Center 3333 Coyote Hill Road Palo Alto, CA 94706 USA +1 650 812 4000 {bellotti, nicolas, mahoward, iansmith}@parc.com ABSTRACT avenues. Among these, CAFE [20] is probably the most Email has come to play a central role in task management, ambitious. Based on studies of email users’ behavior, yet email tool features have remained relatively static in CAFE offers three modes (busy, cool and curious) to recent years, lagging behind users’ evolving practices. The satisfy varying needs in different situations. Cadiz et al.’s Taskmaster system narrows this gap by recasting email as prototype [7] focuses on keeping up with the flow of task management and embedding task-centric resources messages as they arrive and the activity of email triage on directly in the client. In this paper, we describe the field a body of new messages. In a similar vein Rohall et al. research that inspired Taskmaster and the principles behind [18] describe visualization techniques to quickly identify its design. We then describe how user studies conducted dependencies between messages in a conversation. Finally, with “live” email data over a two-week period revealed the Gwidzka’s work [12] focuses on the management of value of a task-centric approach to email system design and pending tasks and the process of reminding to act on them. its potential benefits for overloaded users. This body of research is, however, only in its infancy, with Keywords each prototype only addressing one facet of the problem of Email, task management, user studies, system evaluation task management in email. The situation is similar with commercial software touting personal information INTRODUCTION management (PIM) features, such as Microsoft Outlook, An increasing body of literature points to the importance of which aggregate without integrating diverse components of email as a task management resource. Mackay [14] detailed task management. The task list in Outlook is, for instance, how it supports a variety of time and task management disconnected from the inbox, even though messages and to- activities. Whittaker and Sidner [21] extended her findings dos are often indistinguishable [9, 21]. Outgoing messages, to show how the email inbox is a repository of “to-dos”, frequently conveying important task-related information “to-reads” items of “indeterminate status” and “ongoing (such as outstanding actions for others) are hidden, out of correspondence” that can be difficult to deal with. More context, in the outbox. And time sensitive information recently, we discussed how email is transforming into a relating to message content is restricted to the calendar. “habitat”, the central place from which work is received, Based on our studies of email use, we built Taskmaster, an managed, and delegated in organizations [9]. email system entirely redesigned for task and project In spite of the fact that users’ have co-opted this flexible management. Taskmaster offers a new solution to the often- application as a critical task management resource, the decried “pain of email” [7] by recognizing upfront that this fundamental messaging metaphor of most clients is not technology is not simply concerned with messaging, but optimized for task management. Email users clearly feel that dealing with email and managing tasks and projects overwhelmed and daunted by the time it takes to deal with are indistinguishable [14, 21]. We accomplish this goal all the work coming in through this medium [13, 21]. purely through a redesign of email’s user experience Acknowledging this problem, a few recent projects have without changing its fundamental technical infrastructure. tried to overhaul email’s interface. Several have diminished In this paper we first summarize our investigations the user’s cognitive burden by automating aspects of the regarding task management in email. Based on these filing and organizing of the myriad incoming messages [6, studies, we identify the major facets of email task 16, 19]. But this only addresses the problem of managing management that require support. We then describe our the volume of email. Others have explored different implementation of such a system. Finally, we present the results of an extended evaluation, during which nine users managed their email with our prototype. DRAFT, PLEASE DO NOT CITE OR DISTRIBUTE. THIS SPACE BLANK STUDIES OF TASK MANAGEMENT IN EMAIL Based on our previous work [9, 10], and that of others FOR ACM COPYRIGHT NOTICE. cited above, we hypothesized that much of email’s complexity (and overload) depends on the nature of the task management activities it is used to support. So we devised a multi-phase study of Outlook™ and Eudora™ users to and are often associated with delays of anything from a few understand this better. We recruited 11 people, though not hours to weeks, waiting for responses that enable progress. all could agree to all the phases (and subsequent prototype Role Study Phase Tool Use use; see table 1.). The phases were as follows: Attorney (A) - 2 3 - - Phase 1. For 7 participants, we installed filters on all Legal Secretary (LS) - 2 3 - - incoming and outgoing email. Participants were permitted to delete private content from the folders where the filters Business Development (BD1) - 2 3 - 2 days stored data (participants reported deleting about 10% of the Public Relations (PR) 1 2 3 4 1 week messages). Two to three weeks worth of data in the middle Group Manager 1 (GM1) 1 2 3 4 - of the time period in which the filters were installed was analyzed by hand, message-by-message to see who was Group Manager 2 (GM2) 1 2 3 4 - being emailed about what and how messages related to each Group Manager 3 (GM3) - 2 3 - Ongoing other, in order to determine how tasks and collaboration Patent Process Manager (PPM) 1 2 3 4 - took place in email. So we focused on the following: Researcher 1 (R1) 1 2 3 4 1 day • Addressing: Whether each message was individual, Researcher 2 (R2) 1 2 3 4 2 weeks multiple or list addressed, implying its likely import in terms of thread tracking (as argued in [2]). Researcher 3 (R3) 1 2 3 4 Ongoing Researcher 4 (R4) - - - - Ongoing • Threads: Series of topically related messages and replies (unlike [21] we analyzed content as well as subject Researcher 5 (R5) - - - - 2 weeks lines and thus found a greater average density of threaded Business Development (BD2) - - - - 1 week messages; 46.9%). Threads on distribution lists were only included if the participant contributed to them. Table 1. Roles and participation in study phases and Phase 2. We video recorded 20 to 60 minutes of email prototype use. Due to the heavy commitments required, ‘triage’ (this is the practice of handling incoming email and most participants took part in a subset of the phases. related to-dos and organization [7]). We arranged to be in the participant’s office at a normal time for this activity to The factors that seem to relate most to a sense of overload occur. If it lasted less than 20 minutes, we returned for a are the number of threads one is tracking per day, and the second session. Participants were asked to describe what length of the intervals between messages in those threads. they were doing, but to try to work as normal. Multiplying these two factors for each participant gave us a simple metric that corresponded more closely than the Phase 3. These observations were shortly followed by number of messages per day with reports of overload. The interviews, covering the participant’s role and use of email. explanation is simple: if one is keeping track of a thread We asked open-ended questions (e.g., “what is your biggest with large intervals between messages, the last message organizational headache in email?”) and also used 5-point reminding one about that thread drifts out of sight in the Likert scales to get participants to rate how much they did inbox as more email arrives. The more one gets involved in certain things or used certain features of their email client. threads like this, the harder it is to keep track of them. This Phase 4. At the end of our filtered data collection period, leads to significant amounts of time invested in ‘managing’ we conducted follow-up interviews to complement and task-related content. From analysis of video recordings, we verify our analysis for accuracy of interpretation of the found that our participants spent about 10% of their email filtered message activity (we were close to 100% accurate). work time filing messages they thought they might need for future work (cf [1]) and about 8% scrolling around and FINDINGS: TASK MANAGEMENT IN EMAIL inspecting folders to find messages associated with active Managing Tasks in Email: Quantity and To-Dos threads. This problem is compounded by the fact that Our results from phases 1-4 (see [5] for details) focusing on attachments and links often accompany these messages, and task activity in email, show that some tasks require only a must also be acted upon (by skimming, or reading and then simple rapid response taking just a few seconds (similar to storing somewhere memorable) before any further progress the one-touch model described in [21]). In other cases, a can be made. Most importantly perhaps, these numbers do response might be interrupted or delayed (for minutes, not factor in the time and organizational resources lost hours, even days) while one takes time to gather when a to-do has drifted out of sight and has not been acted information (e.g. from the Web, or documents) to complete upon, as well as the deep frustration experienced by email the task – we call these extended-response tasks.