Rehabilitating a killer app: How Gmail & Outlook help address email’s shortcomings

While email is often called the killer application of the Internet, it is not without flaws, leading a researcher to declare: “E-mail is a serial-killer application! It is seriously overloaded and has been co-opted to manage a variety of tasks that it was not originally meant to support” (Ducheneaut & Bellotti, 2001, p.37). In a seminal study by Whittaker and Sidner, they found email was “overloaded” by three user functions it was not designed for: task management, personal archiving, and conversations (Kiesler, 1997, p.278). This critique of email is applicable today. However, a critical examination of functionality currently available in Microsoft Outlook and Google’s Gmail demonstrates that these applications offer innovative ways to address these critiques.

Task management refers to the ability of reminding a user of outstanding tasks, recalling related details, and tracking progress and deadlines (Kiesler, 1997, p.278). Whittaker and Sidner found that a crowded inbox makes task management difficult, yet users were reluctant to file or delete messages to alleviate this issue. They proposed that email software should allow the flagging of actionable messages (Kiesler, 1997, p.292) and permit users to set reminders. In a comparison between Outlook and Gmail, Outlook surpasses Gmail in this regard. Gmail allows users to flag messages by clicking on a star icon or colour-code incoming messages based on user-specified filters, not only does this help visually prioritize messages, thus allowing users to keep messages in their inbox, but draw attention to those needing follow-up. Outlook takes this functionality further - allowing messages to not only be flagged, but also permitting users to specify a due date and seamlessly integrates with a calendar and specific task management application.

Email’s second problematic area is personal archiving, which Whittaker and Sidner state is “cognitively difficult” (Kiesler, 1997, p.285). While some users studied kept all messages in their inbox or only periodically filed, this resulted in inboxes so full that retrieval became difficult. They recommended full-text search and automatic message threading. While both Gmail and Outlook offer full-text search, only Gmail makes archiving less cognitively challenging. Gmail, by giving a large amount of free storage space and by offering prominent one-touch “Archive” functionality, allows users to park messages that can be retrieved easily by clicking “All Messages”. Additionally, Gmail offers users the choice to “label” and thus group emails by one or more terms. This improves archiving by allowing users to store a message in multiple places. However, if too many labels are applied, message retrieval could be complicated.

The final issue regarding user functionality itemized by Whittaker and Sidner is conversations. Conversations may involve many overlapping multi-person, multi-topic messages that can be difficult to follow. Whittaker and Sidner cite the lack of convention in including message context; this has been addressed by Outlook and Gmail by defaulting to include a message’s history when replying or forwarding. Again, Gmail goes further by offering the ability to “file an entire thread, but leave a representative message from that thread in the inbox” (Kiesler, 1997, p.292). Gmail does this by automatically grouping messages on the same thread into one message in the inbox. Thus not only is inbox clutter reduced, but conversations can be more easily followed.

Despite this retrofitting of email applications to accommodate actual usage, I believe ingrained user behaviour will be hard to change. Users will still likely struggle with overloaded email. Users can look to Gmail and Outlook for assistance – two email programs that finally address the problems identified by Whittaker and Sidner in 1996. While Gmail is free and generally outperforms Outlook in the above functions, Outlook might be more useful to business users for its close integration with calendar and task management applications.

References

Ducheneaut, N., & and Bellotti, V. (2001). E-mail as habitat: An exploration of embedded personal information management. Interactions, 8(5), 30-38. New York, N.Y.: ACM.

Whittaker, S., & Sidner, C. (1997b). Email overload: Exploring personal information management of email. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 277-295). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Are Web Publishers Obsolete?

As it is the Friday before March break and with yet another winter onslaught hitting Toronto, my office was deserted today. Naturally, as one of the few souls remaining, I passed some time chatting with co-workers.

My cubicle-mate, mentioned that he had perfected a Dreamweaver template that now made it incredibly easy for almost anyone to publish online. I have only dabbled with Dreamweaver templates, but I do love how they have editable and uneditable regions, so that those using templates can't accidentally bring down an entire site by changing one simple line of code. I also like, as I saw from my colleague's template, how Dreamweaver can make it easy to add or subtract designated editable regions.

Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG features already made most web formatting quite easy and combined with a good template, web publishing can indeed be very easy now.

This led me to question whether or not there is a role in large to medium sized organizations for dedicated web publishers?

I define a web publisher as a specialist who takes pre-authored content, formats and adjusts it for the medium, and posts it online. Can content authors using Dreamweaver templates now post directly to the web without the need for a web publisher's intervention? Or can web publisher's now act merely as tester/reviewer?

I do think training content creators to use Dreamweaver’s publishing tools would be easily achievable, that is assuming they have the desire and time to do so.

I don’t believe that online formatting is the stumbling block for online publishing. From my experience, the problem still is writing material that is appropriate for online media. While it seems like every journalist and corporate communicator has now taken a course on web-friendly writing, I still find that many people don’t really get it, or their print bias is too-deeply ingrained, or they just don’t have the time or inclination to really understand online publishing. Making website text effective and appropriate is not just doing the maxims sold as simple solutions, that is write shorter, chunk up you copy, use bullets, don't go more than one screen.

While some of these points are true, there are times when doing the opposite is better. And there are other ways that web publishers can help format, organize, and rewrite copy if necessary, to make it more effective and medium appropriate. These take time to learn and it is here that I think web publishers will continue to offer value to organizations.

So to answer my own question, I’d say that updates to existing online material or simple changes can be done with minimal, possibly no involvement from a web publisher. But new material or substantial changes, call in your pro.

User Tagging Effective Aid for Online Searching

Due to an ever-growing abundance of online information, there is increasing difficulty in finding useful information. Currently, most web data is coded to instruct browsers to display data, without regard for meaning. By adding metadata to denote what data means, search engines can offer more useful results. While there are limitations with metadata approaches, user tagging appears to offer the greatest potential for improving online searching.

Metadata can be split into two main types: 1) tagging – the act of appending keywords to web resources (e.g. del.icio.us, Flickr, StumbleUpon), and 2) semantic web data – coding conventions to describe the data (e.g. RDF and microformats). Metadata can be added by, or in conjunction with, four groups: 1) creators, 2) programmers, 3) information specialists, 4) users. Metadata is useful for retrieving resources already found, (e.g. del.icio.us’ use of tagging), or for filtering of content to read pertinent areas. Yet, it is the use of metadata, specifically tagging by users, to aid searching that offers the most potential.

The leading hurdle for semantic web data is its highly technical nature, which limits use primarily to advanced web developers. Two XML/XHMTL solutions, RDF or microformats, are too advanced for many web developers, let alone lay web users. As a veteran web developer, I found the syntax of both to be intimidating. Until web-authoring software simplifies adding semantic data, it will remain a good idea left largely unimplemented.

There are essentially two limitations with the use of metadata by information specialists. For one, there is far too much web content to address. Yahoo, for example, abandoned a manual process as too time-consuming and costly. Secondly, while information specialists are good at classifying resources based on official schema or taxonomies, which work well in smaller environments such as an intranet, their work may not necessarily address the needs and lexicon of users in a wider community.

Tagging by content creators also faces the limitation that the creators do not fully know users’ needs and lexicon, even though they know the content well. In addition, tagging by content creators offers the opportunity for abuse – both intentional and unintentional. Unintentional abuse can derive from ignorance of standards, lack of accurate self-appraisal, or cultural or language differences. Abuse can also be intentional, as typified by spammers and phishers who use false metadata to lure people to their sites.

Tagging by content users offers the most potential for web searchers. Group tagging draws on the theory of the wisdom of crowds, wherein collective action by a diverse group results in better information than even specialists could provide. When a resource is tagged by a sufficient array of users, it overcomes minor discrepancies and represents what the resource actually means to most users. Users know the terms they associate with a resource and can use their own words to identify it; they are not apt to misidentify for selfish gain. Also, most tagging services are free, and they are quick and easy to use, compared to semantic web data.

Tagging services are not yet standard offerings in browsers and require time to learn, which may be why these services lack widespread adoption. However, as more and more users tag web resources, this situation will improve and will offer even more aid to web searchers.

Delicious questions I can sink my teeth into

My current course is covering tagging this week. As such, I posted this blog's prior del.icio.us primer to my class forum. There were two responses that offer interesting concerns about usefulness and safety of del.icio.us.

Value of del.icio.us
From S.C.:

I used to be a information junkie and file folder fanatic, the literal sort, collecting information in case I ever needed it. But then I realized that I was a collector and not a user, so I threw away my files and downsized my cabinet ... all except my favorite ten. So this phenomenon really intrigues me and would love to know how the info that is tagged gets used, as opposed to collected.

My response:
First, I agree that a lot of people tag things on del.icio.us that they will in all likelihood never retrieve again. But that doesn't mean it doesn't have value.

For one, conventional tree-system bookmarking via your browser gets limited very fast, particularly if you have a lot of bookmarks, bookmarks hard to classify, or, like me, you think more in terms of keywords rather than rigid classification structures. Even if you only return to very few of your bookmarks, knowing you can find them again fairly easy is worth the effort. Of course, if you're fairly good at googling you can retrieve things that way - but sometimes I forget everything about a bookmark, except a vague sense of the topic, so keyword tagging is great for that. Also, del.icio.us gives you a search engine for your bookmarks, which no browser has.

Second, when you bookmark via del.icio.us you automatically share your bookmarks with the rest of the wired world. You can opt out of each individual tag by clicking the "do not share" option, but that defeats a lot of the value of it, which is social bookmarking. You contribute to the classification of scattered, overly-abundant online information when you tag on del.icio.us. So others can benefit from your findings and one day computers will be able to read these tags effectively and then we'll have a search engine that will probably beat Google for its accuracy.

You can do other things with your tags too. My favourite is sharing a specific tag automatically on my blog. So I get a Reuters-type feed of Internet news on my blog automatically by reading the news (as I normally do) and tagging them. A friend set up a del.icio.us account for all research by their communication team, so that they can all share their findings.

So there's lots of uses for del.icio.us even if you don't retrieve your bookmarks very often.

Privacy concerns
From S.T.:

When I show (and show off!) my del.icio.us site to my co-workers, the first question that comes back at me is 'what about security and privacy?

My response:
Security concerns would be along the lines of can someone hack into your account and if you have a good, long alphanumeric password then I wouldn't worry any more than I would when registering with any online service.

Privacy is a more complicated concern. When you bookmark on del.icio.us or many other similar sites , you are by default (which can be changed), making all your bookmarks available to the public. Furthermore, search engines index your bookmarks page and this will bring more exposure to your bookmarking.

So if you do not want all your bookmarking public,ere are some tips:

1. When bookmarking/tagging in del.icio.us, you can always click the "do not share" button for any or all your bookmarks and it is private. You lose some of the benefits of social bookmarking, but then you do get better privacy and can still use the service for your own bookmark organizing.
2. If you still want to participate in social bookmarking but are a bit concerned, don't chose a username that can be identified with you.
3. Choose to make any bookmarks that can be identified with you or your life (eg. your hometown website, your portfolio, the company you work for, etc) as "do not share".
4. Under account settings "edit profile", indicate that you don't want your name or a url used.
5. If you don't want to others to see those in your network - you can choose to have that not display. This is also done in account settings under "network privacy".
   

I don't want to scare any one off as I have never had any problems with del.icio.us and I am as open as possible on it. But I wanted people to know about the privacy options as they are important considerations.

To close, I'll include a quotation from a classmate on my del.icio.us knowledge that was cyber-candy to me:

Your knowledge of del.icio.us is astounding! I am learning so much, thanks! You could be a tagging consultant, make oodles, retire at 40 and live in the Caymans!

I intend to start a custom tag, "Tagging_to_Caymans" and put all the ways I can make money from this trivia.

Path Dependency & Loss of Novelty

Here's a mini assignment I had to do for my latest class, Human Computer Interaction. The assignment was to take these two readings and discuss the concepts of path dependency and loss of novelty.

***

Path dependency and loss of novelty create barriers to technological innovation, as demonstrated by King, Grinter, and Pickering in their analysis of the Internet’s development (Kiesler, 1997) and can also be seen in operating system (OS) development as outlined by Stephenson (Stephenson, 2008).

Loss of novelty, as described by King et al, refers to the passing of excitement surrounding technological discovery, and while they apply this concept to the developers of technology, it can be extended to the users of technology. Just as a sense of novelty can be a leading incentive for technology innovation, it can also be an incentive for technology adoption – but the inverse is also true. A sense of novelty can lead individuals to overcome various barriers (for example, costs, learning curve, time) to use and adapt new technology, such as when home computers were first introduced many people eagerly explored using them, but this willingness to explore has been replaced by utilitarian concerns with accomplishing tasks at hand. Thus, while Stephenson is critical of the average consumer loyal to Windows, despite superior or cheaper alternatives, such as Linux or BeOS, loss of novelty helps explain why people do not want to learn how to use a new operating system.

Developers do not like to re-invent the wheel, as there are few financial or reputational incentives and, as Stephenson states, “nothing is more disagreeable to the hacker than the duplication of effort” (Stephenson, 2008). Having worked as a programmer, I can attest that the thrill of a new challenge is among the greatest incentives. Much of operating system code is foundational code; although it is not perfect, it is often re-used or third party and offers little challenge to developers, who, as a result, tend to move on to other technological fields. Development of Linux has continued, not, I believe, due to a sense of novelty, but rather due to a commitment to open source ideals, cost-effectiveness, or a dislike of Microsoft.

Even if developers were inclined to innovate with operating systems, they would encounter another barrier, the widespread path dependency to Microsoft Windows. Path dependency happens when “early technologies becom[e] so established in use that they cannot be displaced by newer, and clearly better, technologies” (Kiesler, 1997, p. 30). This can be seen with the Internet where temporary conventions became immovable standards. Innovation does not progress with OS because Microsoft’s virtual monopoly means they do not have a compelling business reason to innovate and other companies face an almost impenetrable market. Other companies add to this path dependency by building their software to support only Windows, and thus innovations other OS companies may offer are further marginalized.

As mentioned earlier, users do not want to take the time to learn a new OS. Users also do not want to incur the costs or risks of switching to a new system that may not be compatible with their existing software and files. These are examples of physical path dependencies, but mental ones exist for users as well. Stephenson notes how both Apple and Microsoft have through sophisticated branding managed to get “people to believe in, and to pay for, a particular image” (Stephenson, 2008). By tying people’s sense of self to their operating system, the prowess of the operating system is subservient to maintaining that identity.

While there have been great technological innovations in the creation of the Internet and operating systems, both have had innovation stymied by path dependency and loss of novelty.

References

King, J. L., Grinter, R. E., & Pickering, J. M. (1997). The rise and fall of Netville: The saga of a cyberspace construction boomtown in the great divide. In S. Kiesler (Ed.), Culture of the Internet (pp. 3-33). Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

Stephenson, N. (2008). In the beginning was the command line. Retrieved January 29, 2008, from http://www.spack.org/wiki/InTheBeginningWasTheCommandLine

On Tags and Signs: A Semiotic Analysis of Folksonomies

In the last few years, the practice of tagging resources on the World Wide Web has become a more popular activity, due in part to the success of websites that feature tagging functionality prominently, such as del.icio.us, Flickr, Technorati, CiteULike, and LibraryThing. These websites allow the collection and sharing of bookmarks, photographs, blog postings, academic papers, and books respectively, and tagging is a key method to enable retrieval and sharing within these sites. Delicious offers the best description of tags and tagging, and this description can be extended beyond bookmarks to a general definition:

Tags are one-word [or multiple words written without spaces or with underscores] descriptors that you can assign to your bookmarks on del.icio.us to help you organize and remember them. Tags are a little bit like keywords, but they're chosen by you, and they do not form a hierarchy. You can assign as many tags to a bookmark as you like…This is great for organizing and finding personal data, but it goes even further when someone else posts related content using the same tags. You begin building a collaborative repository of related information, driven by personal interests and creative organization. (del.icio.us)

Tagging information as a practice existed prior to these websites popularizing it, but these websites were among the first to extend the practice beyond the domain of content creators or information specialists to the general public (Weinberger, 2007, p. 92). When tagging is done by the public, it is often known as a folksonomy (globeandmail.com)

For an understanding of how folksonomies work, or often do not work, the academic tradition of semiotics offers help to “understand what goes into a message…[it] also help[s] to understand how the message comes to have meaning” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008, p. 105) Through a semiotic analysis of the characteristics of folksonomies, I will explore three main difficulties inherent to them. Despite these difficulties, they are emerging as a popular new form of communication in line with the more fluid notions of meaning consistent with the post-structuralist notion of semiotics. The characteristics to be examined are that, first, folksonomies’ collective nature facilitates open meaning, second, that tagging for the self results in confusing connotations, and third, that there is a lack of message coding (in the semiotic sense). Prior to discussing these characteristics, however, I will provide background information about the problems inherent to the use of folksonomies, and insight on how semiotics provides a useful conceptual tool to examine them.

Problem with Folksonomies

The practice of tagging is useful as a personal means to organize data and as a mnemonic device for one’s own retrieval. Indeed, it was originally for this use that Joshua Schachter created del.icio.us (Weinberger, 2007, p. 162). When one moves beyond the personal uses for tagging, however, to the social aspects, the utility of tagging becomes more problematic. There are essentially two levels of complications: 1) people’s tags may be difficult for others to understand, 2) people may have tagged items inappropriately for others’ needs. A good example of this problem was a recent search of Flickr for photos of Hawaii. In addition to the expected images of beaches and volcanoes, one also gets, among the top results, a picture of a couple at an outdoor restaurant (presumably located in Hawaii) and a close-up of a lizard (also presumably located in Hawaii). Another example of tagging difficulties arises in a scan of the most popular tags at del.icio.us, revealing some more meaningful tags (youtube, tv, psychology), but others that are puzzling (toread, fic, ubuntu, fun). People are participating in folksonomies, but not always doing it in a manner that is useful to others.

Use of semiotics

Semiotics is the “study of signs” (Littlejohn & Foss, 2008, p. 35) and tags are definitely signs. Using a triadic structure of a sign with a signifier, that is the “material dimension of the sign,” a signified, “the cultural or conceptual dimension,” and the referent “the real thing in the world,” the structure of a folksonomy sign can be broken down (Black, 2007a, p. 5):

1. signifier = a word or single term that is a link appearing on a webpage
2. signified = what that word link represents to the user, i.e. an expectation of resources on that topic
3. referent = the actual resources that have been tagged with that word, at that point in time

Examining folksonomies through this semiotic structure initially reveals one of the fundamental difficulties with folksonomies, that is, the referent is almost always unknown to the user until he or she clicks through. Often with signs, there is a clear or discernible referent, yet folksonomies, by their very nature, are a complete mystery to the user, making a single, clear meaning unlikely.

Another problematic element is that current technology and practice do not disambiguate the multiple senses one signifier may have (for example, synonyms such as: asp, the programming language and asp, the snake of Cleopatra fame) or to join multiple signifiers sharing the same signified (for example, blog, blogs, weblog). Morville believes that folksonomies are thus fundamentally flawed due to their inability to “handle equivalence, hierarchy, and other semantic relationships caus[ing] them to fail miserably at any significant scale” (as cited inWeinberger, 2007, p. 166). However, Weinberger believes that computers, possibly via artificial intelligence, will eventually address some elements of ambiguity in folksonomies (Weinberger, 2007, p. 166).
For Saussure, a founder of semiotic theory, “the meanings of a sign were fixed socially by convention and, thus, were independent of any consequential variation in interpretation” (Danesi, 1999, p. 11). Yet, consequential variation in interpretation is often widespread with folksonomies, indicating that the meaning offered by tag signs is more complicated, compared to other uses of signs.

Academic Research Online Is a Walled Garden

I've been consumed for the past three weeks researching and writing papers for my Master’s program. I managed to write one paper an Internet topic (a semiotic analysis of folksonomies) and added as many Net references in the others as I could.

In the process of researching online on online topics, I noted two critiques of academia:
1) vehicles for searching online resources are inadequate
2) academic research remains too cloistered

The last few weeks were the first time ever for me that I was exposed to the wealth of electronic academic research. I thought there was lots of information on the Web before, but I was stunned by the quantity and quality of academic information available to students (the databases require log-in and an individual subscription is prohibitively expensive).

Royal Roads University has one of the largest electronic libraries in Canada, which is fitting as it is primarily an online university. Electronic information there takes the forms of:

1. e-books
2. online journal databases
   
3. electronic theses
   

I haven’t made the most of e-books, due to my dislike of reading for a long time onscreen and that e-books can’t accompany me to many of my regular reading places. The theses seem promising, although due to Royal Roads being a comparatively young university they don't have a lot of theses available.

Online academic resources a treasure, albeit hidden & sans map
I did extensively use online academic journals and this is where I was overjoyed and overwhelmed. I had no idea how many journals there were, some of which, believe it or not, aren’t completely esoteric.

There are essentially two problems that I discovered with online searching of these journal databases. Problem one is that there is a bewildering array of journal databases. Second, the search engines for pretty much all these services are, well, crappy. Granted, graduate students do require more advanced search skills than a normal online surfer would need, but still the search tools are unnecessarily complicated, buggy at times, and just plain miss things. I found a lot of instances where I was searching the entire body of articles and certain results would not appear, but later, having found these articles via other means, I would find the terms appearing prominently.

The journal database search engines were so generally poor that I had to use other means, serendipity being the most painful method for time-pressed procrastinators such as myself.

Google Scholar helps save my day
Fortunately, someone turned me onto Google Scholar. I found it retrieved items from academic databases better than the databases own search, plus Google Scholar pulls up other applicable information as well. Truly a very handy tool - thank you Google!

Ivory towers cloister useful research
My final complaint is that while I was also surprised by the quantity and quality of academic research on Internet topics, I was miffed that I never saw any of it before. I’ve worked in the Internet for years, have read books and articles, and been to conferences and was never exposed to this research before.

Granted, it is possible that this research could have come to me via other authors and speakers who digested and regurgitated it. Also, it's not like the research is fit for wider application as can be exceedingly and, I might add, unnecessarily obtuse and elitist (another complaint, sorry). But some research is fine for everyone working in the field as is, and in other cases the findings could be repurposed for wider distribution.

Frankly, I think that too much of academia is infatuated with itself and doesn’t make enough effort to share their research to the outside world. With this attitude one ends up with research for research’s sake. And those, like me, who can benefit from the information don’t get it.