Managing personal and work email in the same box: overcoming the tensions through new metaphors

Abstract We are all familiar with the seemingly endless task of sorting through emails to keep on top of received messages; ploughing ,through ,list and folder based file structures to find ,saved emails and file attachments. It can be an ongoing headache. In this paper we describe our approach to helping people manage,their personal emails and their accompanying attachments using novel interface metaphors. Aninitial online survey was conducted,on people’s email storage behaviour for both home,and work contacts. The findings suggest there is a tension between,how people currently manage,the two and how,they would,like to do,this. Following this we explore,new ways of conceptualising storage,and retrieval in terms of person-centric storage systems. Keywords