St. Fleming et Ac. Kilgour, ELECTRONIC MAIL - CASE-STUDY IN TASK-ORIENTED RESTRUCTURING OF APPLICATION DOMAIN, IEE proceedings. Computers and digital techniques, 141(2), 1994, pp. 65-71
Citations number
17
Categorie Soggetti
Computer Sciences","Computer Science Hardware & Architecture","Computer Science Theory & Methods
Most electronic mail (e-mail) software consists of a mail delivery sys
tem and a user interface. One problem with current e-mail systems is t
hat the user interface represents only a very thin layer on top of the
delivery system. Studies have shown a wide level of diversity in the
ways people work with e-mail systems and a wide range of tasks for whi
ch it is used. This work shows the need for powerful tools to facilita
te the restructuring of the e-mail domain to support users. In particu
lar, the tools must be suitable for use by a variety of users who are
not computer specialists. Perspectives on electronic mail are briefly
reviewed and an empirical study described which provides a basis for d
erivation of the higher-level concepts invoked and tasks undertaken by
a range of users. The notion of a conceptual workspace is introduced
as a framework for user-driven restructuring and processing of compone
nts of an application domain. An instance of the framework is describe
d in the form of a tool for dynamic restructuring of canonical e-mail
components to form higher-level task-oriented constructs identified in
the empirical study. The power and generality of this approach is ill
ustrated by the ability of the tool to support other subsequently iden
tified electronic communication tasks, in particular, the design, admi
nistration and analysis of online questionnaires for a large-scale usa
bility evaluation study.