23rd SEPTEMBER 2014

MobileHCI 2014 Doctoral Consortium

Marta E. Cecchinato

Email Management &

Work-Home Boundaries

marta.cecchinato.13@ucl.ac.uk

@martacecchinato

Image source: http://www.amcharts.com/visited_countries/

Structure of today’s talk:

1. Research question and motivation

2. Quick overview of my research

a. Approach motivated by literature

b. 3-year plan

3. Initial findings and contributions

Are you aware of how many times you’ve checked

your emails today and where were you??

Are you satisfied with your email practices?

But first... my take home message:

Image sourceL http://ind.pn/1tRntS0

Real world problem

Email Overload:

“Users’ perception that

their own email use has

gotten out of control”

Research motivation

Dabbish and Kraut (2006, p.431)

Research motivation

Overall Research Question:

Can technology make it easier for people to manage

their email, so as to reduce email overload?

Image source: http://bit.ly/1mpRvNj

Literature review summary

• Different email management techniques that

may lead to email overload

• Different suggested solutions, but no

agreement on their efficacy (other than “check

less!”)

Differences:

• Individual preferences (filing, workflow approaches,

use of notifications, reasons for deferring replies,…)

• Context-specific (e.g. work demands)

Reflection: why and how?

Stage-based

Behaviour Change

Theories

Personal

Informatics

Model

Reflection

1. Pre-

contemplation

2. Contemplation

3. Preparation

4. Action

5. Maintenance

1. Preparation

2. Collection

3. Reflection

4. Action

1. Description

2. Reflective

description

3. Dialogic

reflection

4. Transformative

reflection

5. Critical

reflectionProchaska, J. O., & Velicer, W. F. (1997). The

transtheoretical model of health behavior change.

American journal of health promotion, 12(1), 38-48.

Chicago

Li, I., Dey, A., & Forlizzi, J. (2010, April). A stage-

based model of personal informatics systems. In

Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on

Human Factors in Computing Systems (pp. 557-

566). ACM.

Fleck, R., & Fitzpatrick, G. (2010, November). Reflecting on

reflection: framing a design landscape. In Proceedings of

the 22nd Conference of the Computer-Human Interaction

Special Interest Group of Australia on Computer-Human

Interaction (pp. 216-223). ACM.

Digital epiphany

1. Tracking

2. Reflecting

3. Epiphany:

- Change

- Acceptance

“Having an insight about one of their digital behaviours, […]

The realization about this personal habit is the result of

using a digital PI tool” .

(Cox, Bird, & Fleck, 2013, p.2)

GOAL 1 –understand

users

GOAL 2 – explore existing tools

GOAL 3 –designing and evaluating a tailored tool

1st Year

2nd Year

3rd year

Image source: http://bit.ly/1ntCMxI

Research Questions:

1. How do people use email in their personal and

work domains across devices?

2. Do they have different strategies depending on

device used and/or domain?

Methods:

Study 1 - The interview study

Study 2 - The email game study

GOAL 1: Understanding email behavioural differences and the impact of

email on work-home boundaries

Image source: http://bit.ly/1rpkWPR

Research Questions:

1. What tools currently exist that aim to

help people deal with their email?

2. Are they effective in helping people

change their email behaviour?

Methods:

Study 3 - Tool review

Study 4 - Performance and longitudinal

study

GOAL 2: Understanding email tools and their

efficacy

• Designing and evaluating

a personalisable and

customizable tool

• that accommodates email

individual and contextual

differences and

• can help reflect on

habits so that a

satisfactory work-home

balance can be achieved.

Goal 3:Designing a better email tool

Study 1

Exploratory study to

understand how

people use emails

across social domains

and across devices?

Interviews + Work-Life

Indicator survey

16 participants (5

males, 9 academic

staff, 7 professional

services staff)MOBILE HCI 2014 WORKSHOP

SOCIO-TECHNICAL PRACTICES AND

WORK-HOME BOUNDARIES

Study 1 – Initial findings

Permeable boundaries (academics)

• Work/personal email on

same mobile app

• Symmetrical

interruptions work-home

Rigid Boundaries (prof. services)

• Asymmetrical

interruptions work-home

• Control micro-role

transitions with micro-

boundaries

1

2

3

4

5

Academics (N=9) Prof. Serv. (N=6)

Means

NonWork Interrupting Work Work Interrupting NonWork Boundary Control

Family Identity Work Identity

“I would never ever check

my [work] email outside of

work, purposely. It's not the

kind of job that I think about

when I’m not here. I'm not

allowed to work from home"

– P13, Female, PS.

Rigid

boundary

management

Permeable

boundary

management

“The first check is probably right after I

woke up, I will check everything that has

come in the night [on phone]. […] I will

probably have another look once I'm

outside the house, so during my commute

time I will check once again. And once I'm

in my office, I don't have any specific rule,

it's really case by case. […] Once I’m home

[…] I have a second work shift after [my

son] goes to bed until quite late in the

night”

– P15, Male, A.

“I get up, check my email in bed, check my

email on the toilet, check my email

downstairs, maybe whilst I'm having breakfast,

walk to work, generally don't check my email

while I'm actually walking, when I'm waiting for

the train, on the train, maybe in the lift getting

up to work. Maybe then at work, then on the

train on the way home, in front of the TV,

during dinner, yeah, that's about everything I

think.”

– P5, Male, A.

Boundary challenges: overload and

availability

Micro-boundary email practices:

“A strategy to limit the effects of micro-role transition caused by cross-

domain technology mediated interruptions.”

Through accounts:

- one per role

- Creating dedicated folders from one domain in another domain

account with automatic filtering

Through devices:

- personal only on smartphone, work only on desktop computer.

- Deliberately removing work email from phone during time off, e.g. on

holiday;

Through software:

- different apps on smartphone for personal and work email

Boundary Management

1. Professional context has a large impact on email practices: when, where

and how people manage emails and the impact these have on work-

home boundaries.

1. We see a growing trend in the use of micro-boundary strategies to

separate work and personal emails

1. People with more permeable boundary management styles might find it

useful to create micro-boundaries within devices to help them cope with

micro-role transitions between work and personal domains, and to limit

work-home interference.

Contributions

[WP1] Cecchinato, M., Cox, A. L., & Bird, J. (2014). “I check my emails on the toilet”: Email Practices and

Work-Home Boundary Management. MobileHCI Workshop Socio-Technical Practices and Work-

Home Boundaries.

[WP2] Cecchinato, M.E., Bird, J. & Cox, A.L. (2014). “Personalised email tools: a solution to email

overload? CHI’14 Workshop Personalised Behaviour Change Technologies

@martacecchinato

marta.cecchinato.13@ucl.ac.uk