Finding Email in a Multi-Account, Multi-Device World

Abstract

Email is far from dead; in fact the volume of messages exchanged daily, the number of accounts per user, and the number of devices on which email is accessed have been constantly growing. Most previous studies on email have focused on management and retrieval behaviour within a single account and on a single device. In this paper, we examine how people retrieve email in today's ecosystem through an in-depth qualitative diary study with 16 participants. We found that personal and work accounts are managed differently, resulting in diverse retrieval strategies: while work accounts are more structured and thus email is retrieved through folders, personal accounts have fewer folders and users rely primarily on the built-in search option. Moreover, retrieval occurs primarily on laptops and PCs compared to smartphones. We explore the reasons, and uncover barriers and workarounds related to managing multiple accounts and devices. Finally, we consider new design possibilities for email clients to better support how email is used today.

Cross-Device Taxonomy

“…For example, early observations of multi-display use in office environments [112] triggered other research of how cognitive load can be reduced through usage of multiple displays [153] and multiple devices [75,252,290]. Similarly, other observational studies have been used to investigate current multi-device utilisation [41,42], barriers for true multi-device usage [263], or the effects of display sizes in collaborative work [148,377].…”

“…Mitigating the Effects of Legacy Bias: The phenomenon of legacy bias, where users resort to well-known interaction styles even when more effective and novel techniques are available, has been documented in studies of crossdevice sensemaking [263], note-taking [157], and curation tasks [32]. Although workplace and user experience studies consistently report that many people are already struggling with multi-device fragmentation [42,75,290], it remains an open issue to what extent users will adopt new multi-device systems. More research into the mental models of individual devices and larger ecologies is needed to provide an empirical ground for new technical cross-device research.…”

A Usability Study of Secure Email Deletion

“…Odom et al [12] showed that users desire both permanence and ephemerality for different digital possessions. As an example, Cecchinato et al [6] show that email users frequently use email archives to retrieve important information. Others have proposed expiration dates for email [18] and ephemerality for email [10].…”

"WhatsApp is for family; Messenger is for friends"

“…A large-scale survey with university employees by Capra et al [2] revealed that 88% of respondents had at least two email accounts. The most common reason for having multiple email accounts is to let users separate their personal and work lives [3]. Gross and Churchill [7] expanded on these email studies and argued that research should take into account the user's full range of communication means.…”