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Exploring Email-Prompted Information Needs

Published: 18 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Over three billion people use personal email accounts for a wide variety of communications, largely from businesses. These messages often require additional information that users need to look for outside of the email itself, such as store hours, bill details, or related news articles. We studied these "email-prompted information needs" in a pilot interview-based study, a two-week diary study, and a large-scale survey with 790 total participants, finding that Notification, Deal, and Newsletter messages were the most likely to spark a need for external information. We conclude with several designs evaluated in a concept evaluation study with 276 participants and implications for the design of personal email services to better meet users' external information needs.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 5, Issue CSCW2
CSCW2
October 2021
5376 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3493286
Issue’s Table of Contents
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Published: 18 October 2021
Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

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  1. diary study
  2. email
  3. information needs
  4. survey

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