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Keeping Found

Things Foundand other challenges of

Personal Information Management

Harry Bruce, William Jones, Susan Dumais

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The Challenge

• We regularly locate, encounter or acquire information that we know we will want to use again

• We need to organize and manage the information that we need to use for work, fun, and everyday tasks

http://plus.maths.org/issue23/editorial/information.jpg

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Keeping Found Things Found

• Studied how individuals manage information that they find or encounter and plan to use at a later point in time

– Focused on this behavior in relation to information located or encountered on the World Wide Web

• Participants:– Researchers– Information specialists– Managers

Keeping StudyRe-finding StudySurveyFolders study

Selected results

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The Keeping Study

• Goals

– To understand the diversity of keeping and leaving methods that people use to manage Web information

– To analyze the underlying function of the observed keeping methods

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Observation

• Participants (24) were asked to pursue a work task using the Web – observed and video

recorded

• Participants were instructed to think aloud during the task, and to respond to interruptions and chance discoveries as they normally would

http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1445000/images/_1447145_pc150.jpg

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Interview

• After the observation, participants were asked to “fill in the gaps” or to explain certain actions – identified other keeping/leaving

methods they might use in other situations of web use

– discussed the strengths and weaknesses of various methods

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The Re-finding Study

• Goal– To explore the various

methods that participants used for re-finding information previously located or encountered on the World Wide Web

• Participants – twelve of the twenty-four

participants from the Keeping Study

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Set up• Sample of web sites

recently visited– obtained from the

participant’s History list– Frequency of access data

(low, medium, high)

• Participants rate the likelihood of revisiting each site– 75% or higher rating -

participants provide a brief description of their activities at the site

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Observation

• 3-6 months later, participants were given cues for web sites selected from their descriptions of use in the set-up interview– asked if they recalled the related web

site based on the brief description of activities at the site

– asked to return to the cued web site

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Survey

• Goals– To determine, from a larger sample of

participants, if the list of observed keeping methods was complete and how frequently people use each method

– To find out why certain keeping methods are used

• Sample - 214

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Folders Study

• Goal – To observe the role of folders in the organization of project-related information

• 14 participants– Interviews– Snapshots of collections of

information related to selected projects

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Personal Information Collection

• Our personal subset of the larger information world

• A collection of information sources and channels that we as individuals have acquired, cultivated, and organized over time

• Where we turn first when we need information to do a task or pursue an interest

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Personal Information Collection

–A Mental Construct–A Set of Things

•Content in various forms (documents, web pages, mail, notes, calendars, address books, etc.)

•Structures for representing and organizing this information (folder hierarchies, piles, lists, etc.)

•Pointers to information (people, links, favorites, etc).

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Personal Information Collection

• A set of processes and related behavior– Selecting– Keeping/ leaving– Re-finding– Maintaining

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Keeping Behavior

Occurs when an individual identifies information as useful and engages in actions to make the information accessible in the future

http://www.officemuseum.com/1886_Shannon_Cabinet_File_Schlicht__Field_Co_Rochester_NY.jpg

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Methods - Keeping• Send an email

to self with URL• Send an email

to others that contains a web page reference

• Print out the web page

• Save the web page as a file

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Methods - Keeping

• Paste the URL in a document

• Add a hyperlink in a personal web page

• Bookmark the web page

• Write down the URL• Copy to a “links”

toolbar • Create a “note” in

Outlook

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Leaving - do nothing - Behavior

• Occurs when the individual recognizes the information is useful (and that it will be useful in the future), but also that it can be located again easily

• The individual makes a conscious decision to leave the information in situ – For example, a regularly used website

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Methods – Leaving (Do nothing) • Remember the URL (or

remember the first part of the URL and rely on the browser for suggested completion)

• Search for (find again) desired information

• Reach information later from a known point of access, such as a web portal

http://www.idiom.com/icons/search.gif

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Keeping - Leaving

• People report using on average just over 5 methods for keeping web information at least once per week

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Top seven methods*

80

54

51

43

40

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36

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Make a Bookmark or Favorite

Do nothing to keep - search again to re-access

Do nothing to keep - enter the URL directly

Send email to others

Do nothing to keep - access viaanother website

Print out the web page

Send email to self

* Ranked by the proportion of participants using the method at least once per week

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Keeping – Leaving

• Individuals often use several keeping/leaving methods – choosing these methods according to their functionality and the purpose that the information kept is likely to serve in the future

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Method selection (functionality and information use)

• Context– Participant can establish a context for why a website

was kept• Reminding

– Keeping method reminds participant about the information

• Ease of integration– Method helps the participant to integrate new info or

new references with ongoing projects or organizational schemes

• Communication and information sharing– Method makes it easier to share information with others

• Ease of maintenance– Method supports or facilitates the participant’s effort to

maintain and update his or her personal information collection

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Method selection (functionality and information use)

• Portability of information– Participants can take information with them

• Number of access points– Participant can access information from

multiple places• Persistence of information

– Web site content will remain relatively unchanged over time

• Preservation of information in its current state– Design of web site will be preserved

• Currency of information– Information can be refreshed to reflect the

most current updates to the content

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Email to self - 83 - - - 2 25 17 - -

Email to others - 2 - - - - - - 123 -

Print-out 34 - 19 7 - 5 12 21 22 -

Save as file - - 35 10 - - 3 17 2 -

Paste URL in document

- - - - - 20 4 35 15 -

Personal web site - 9 - - - - - 8 18 -

Write down URL - - - - - - 13 - 5 -

Por

tabi

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Per

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Pre

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Cur

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Con

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Rem

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Eas

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in

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Com

mun

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mai

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Functionality influencing a participant’s decision to use a

keeping method

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Memory - Attention• People keep masses of information that they never

use - large stacks of good intentions for web references, paper documents, etc. they mean to read some day but never do

• People have information closets - especially in digital form

• People forget to use information they have kept until it is too late

• People go to great lengths to arrange and highlight

information so that they can see the things that matter first

 

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Fragmentation

• People complain about having too many information organizations - for email, e-documents, paper, web references

• Some people go to great lengths to

consolidate these organizations

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The Google question

• “Suppose that you could find your personal information using a simple search (fast, effortless to maintain, secure and private)

• Can we take away your folders?

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Folder study

–Yes - 1

–No – 13

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The Google question

• Why are folders so important?

–Visibility – Understanding – Folders show the relationship between things

–Control – Being sure the files needed are in one place

–Trust – can’t rely on search alone

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We need better PIM

• As individuals– better use of precious resources (time,

money, energy, attention) and, ultimately, a better quality to our lives.

• For organizations, – Short term

• employee productivity and better team work

– Longer-term• management and leverage of employee

expertise.

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We need better PIM

• Progress in PIM must be made not only with new tools and technologies but also with new teachable information management techniques– education programs in PIM literacy

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Next steps

A. Fragmentation Integration• Prototype development

– Information management and project management go hand-in-hand

– Un-application approach– Universal labeler; project planner

B. Exploring personal information collection(s) (EPIC)

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Personal Information Collections

• Describe selected attributes (components, size, structures for organization, memory and access) of personal information collections that are used for work roles and tasks

1. How do people decide what to include in a personal information collection?

2. How do people organize and manage information in a personal information collection?

3. How do people find information they need in a personal information collection?