Managing the sequencing and timing of reading email and taking action on it

Transcript

1. Reeta Banerjee | Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser | Borui Wang | Designing Calm | January 2013 Our users are: They need: Because: Reeta Banerjee is a Learning, Design, and Technology Masters student interested in how mobile technologies can make people's lives more simple, productive, and happy. Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser is interested in the intersection of media and technology. Currently: GSB. Previously: Mobile, web, and social products @ Comcast, Tunerfish, and MyNewPlace. Borui Wang is a hacker who actually sleeps during the night and dreams no code. Technologically sophisticated knowledge workers who spend most of their day connected to email To feel like they control their inbox and not like their inbox controls them Their email is a mailbox and a to-do list rolled into one, and when everything arrives the same way, regardless of whether it requires attention or not, it’s scary We are:
2. Reeta Banerjee | Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser | Borui Wang | Designing Calm | January 2013 Stress Model New email Requires me to do something? N Y Action is required: Later Now Am I able to take action? Y N High Stress requires tracking the task to be done Low urgency High urgency Low Effort High effort Do because easy, or ignore (low stress) Do now, because easy (low to medium stress) Postpone (causes lingering stress due to tracking task) Change what you’re currently doing to do it (high stress) Motivation Ability Problem: Same trigger, regardless of which box the email falls in Low Stress requires tracking the task to be done
3. Reeta Banerjee | Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser | Borui Wang | Designing Calm | January 2013 Existing products & problems addressed
4. Reeta Banerjee | Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser | Borui Wang | Designing Calm | January 2013 Lots of attention paid to the problems of being able to more easily find what you’re looking for, reducing the volume of unread email in inbox, and calling out high-priority emails but little paid to the underlying issue: Helping people deal with what allows that clutter to build up in the first place: poorly managing the sequencing and timing of reading email and taking action on it. Themes across products
5. Reeta Banerjee | Jonathan (Jasper) Sherman-Presser | Borui Wang | Designing Calm | January 2013 Themes: Attention and time Urgency and effort (now vs. later) Why do we let email make us feel like we have to do something now? Because we’re addicted to finding out what an email contains Because we don’t want to have to deal with it later Because we want to protect our time: when we put something off until later, it takes the same amount of time then in addition to occupying our mental space until then --> Tristan’s “attention is the lens that magnifies our time or allows it to leak out” Problem with email: Always triggers you, no matter whether the email is high effort/high urgency, high effort/low urgency, low effort/low urgency, or low effort/high urgency The problem is the sequencing of things: the auditory notification is specifically designed to call your attention to email at the times that you are least able to do something about it (i.e., when you’re not in your email). Opportunities: Work on the trigger/motivation/ability relationship Some ideas, questions, and opportunities