Email's conduit function means the inbox, folders, search, and sort are used to support core PIM functions of task management, personal archiving, and contact management.

Recent trends toward telecommuting, mobile work, and wider distribution of the work force, combined with reduced technology costs, have made video communications more attractive as a means of supporting informal remote interaction. In the past, however, video communications have never gained widespread acceptance. Here we identify possible reasons for this by exarnining how the spoken characteristics of video-mediated communication differ from face-to-face interaction, for a series of real meetings. We evaluate two wide-area systems. One uses readily available Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) lines but suffers the limitations of transmission lags, a half-duplex line, and poor quality video. The other uses optical transmission

Traditionally users access their personal files mainly by using folder navigation. We evaluate whether recent improvements in desktop search have changed this fundamental aspect of Personal Information Management (PIM). We tested this in two studies using the same questionnaire: (a) The Windows Study-a longitudinal comparison of Google Desktop and Windows XP Search Companion, and (b) The Mac Study-a large scale comparison of Mac Spotlight and Sherlock.There were few effects for improved search. First, regardless of search engine, there was a strong navigation preference: on average, users estimated that they used navigation for 56-68% of file retrieval events but searched for only 4-15% of events. Second, the effect of improving the quality of the search engine on search usage was limited and inconsistent. Third, search was used mainly as a last resort when users could not remember file location. Finally, there was no evidence that using improved desktop search engines leads people to change their filing habits to become less reliant on hierarchical file organization. We conclude by offering theoretical explanations for navigation preference, relating to differences between PIM and Internet retrieval, and suggest alternative design directions for PIM systems.

We explored general issues concerning personal information management by investigating the characteristics of office workers' paper-based information, in an industrial research environment. We examined the reasons people collect paper, types of data they collect, problems encountered in handling paper, and strategies used for processing it. We tested three specific hypotheses in the course of an office move. The greater availability of public digital data along with changes in people's jobs or interests should lead to wholescale discarding of paper data, while preparing for the move. Instead we found workers kept large, highly valued paper archives. We also expected that the major part of people's personal archives would be unique documents. However, only 49% of people's archives were unique documents, the remainder being copies of publicly available data and unread information, and we explore reasons for this. We examined the effects of paper-processing strategies on archive structure. We discovered different paper-processing strategies ( filing and piling) that were relatively independent of job type. We predicted that filers' attempts to evaluate and categorize incoming documents would produce smaller archives that were accessed frequently. Contrary to our predictions, filers amassed more information, and accessed it less frequently than pilers. We argue that filers may engage in premature filing: to clear their workspace, they archive information that later turns out to be of low value. Given the effort involved in organizing data, they are also loath to discard filed information, even when its value is uncertain. We discuss the implications of this research for digital personal information management.

We carried out fieldwork to characterise and compare physical and digital mementos in the home. Physical mementos are highly valued, heterogeneous and support different types of recollection. Contrary to expectations, we found physical mementos are not purely representational, and can involve appropriating common objects and more idiosyncratic forms. In contrast, digital mementos were initially perceived as less valuable, although participants later reconsidered this. Digital mementos were somewhat limited in function and expression -largely involving representational photos and videos, and infrequently accessed. We explain these digital limitations and conclude with design guidelines for digital mementos, including better techniques for accessing and integrating these into everyday life -allowing them to acquire the symbolic associations and lasting value that characterise their physical counterparts.

Current perceptions of Instant Messaging (IM) use are based primarily on self-report studies. We logged thousands of (mostly) workplace IM conversations and evaluated their conversational characteristics and functions. Contrary to prior research, we found that the primary use of workplace IM was for complex work discussions. Only 28% of conversations were simple, single-purpose interactions and only 31% were about scheduling or coordination. Moreover, people rarely switched from IM to another medium when the conversation got complex. We found evidence of two distinct styles of use. Heavy IM users and frequent IM partners mainly used it to work together: to discuss a broad range of topics via many fastpaced interactions per day, each with many short turns and much threading and multitasking. Light users and infrequent pairs mainly used IM to coordinate: for scheduling, via fewer conversations per day that were shorter, slower-paced with less threading and multitasking.

We examine the effects of new technologies for digital photography on people's longer term storage and access to collections of personal photos. We report an empirical study of parents' ability to retrieve photos related to salient family events from more than a year ago. Performance was relatively poor with people failing to find almost 40% of pictures. We analyze participants' organizational and access strategies to identify reasons for this poor performance. Possible reasons for retrieval failure include: storing too many pictures, rudimentary organization, use of multiple storage systems, failure to maintain collections and participants' false beliefs about their ability to access photos. We conclude by exploring the technical and theoretical implications of these findings.

Current perceptions of Instant Messaging (IM) use are based primarily on self-report studies. We logged thousands of (mostly) workplace IM conversations and evaluated their conversational characteristics and functions. Contrary to prior research, we found that the primary use of workplace IM was for complex work discussions. Only 28% of conversations were simple, single-purpose interactions and only 31% were about scheduling or coordination. Moreover, people rarely switched from IM to another medium when the conversation got complex. We found evidence of two distinct styles of use. Heavy IM users and frequent IM partners mainly used it to work together: to discuss a broad range of topics via many fastpaced interactions per day, each with many short turns and much threading and multitasking. Light users and infrequent pairs mainly used IM to coordinate: for scheduling, via fewer conversations per day that were shorter, slower-paced with less threading and multitasking.