1. 23rd SEPTEMBER 2014
MobileHCI 2014 Doctoral Consortium
Marta E. Cecchinato
Email Management &
Work-Home Boundaries
marta.cecchinato.13@ucl.ac.uk
@martacecchinato

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

3. 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

4. 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

5. Real world problem

6. Email Overload:
“Users’ perception that
their own email use has
gotten out of control”
Research motivation
Dabbish and Kraut (2006, p.431)
Research motivation

7. 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

8. 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)

9. 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
reflection
Prochaska, 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.

10. 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)

11. GOAL 1 –
understand
users
GOAL 2 – explore
existing tools
GOAL 3 –
designing and
evaluating a
tailored tool
1st Year
2nd Year
3rd year

12. 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

13. 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

14. • 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. “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.

19. “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

20. 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

21. 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

22. @martacecchinato
marta.cecchinato.13@ucl.ac.uk