Skip to main content
Springer Nature Link
Log in

The User-Subjective Approach to Personal Information Management: From Theory to Practice

  • Chapter
Human-Computer Interaction: The Agency Perspective

Part of the book series: Studies in Computational Intelligence ((SCI,volume 396))

Abstract

PIM systems are unique in that the person who stores the information and decides on its organization is the same person who later retrieves it. The user-subjective approach takes advantage of this unique feature and suggests that PIM systems should make systematic use of subjective, user-dependent attributes. This chapter presents the development of the approach from theory through empirical evidence to practical design schemes: (a) It describes its three theoretical design principles - the subjective project classification principle, the subjective importance principle and the subjective context principle; (b) provides evidence to support them - users use subjective attributes when these are sporadically encouraged by design, and at times even when they are discouraged, by using their own alternative ways of doing so; and (c) presents six intriguely simple design schemes that derive from these principles. In addition, the chapter describes three alternative approaches to PIM system design (search, multiple-classification and automatic classification) and reports on a set of ongoing studies to assess them.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Jones, W.: Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management. Morgan Kauffman, Seattle (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Whittaker, S., Terveen, L., Nardi, B.A.: Let’s stop pushing the envelope and start addressing it: a reference task agenda for HCI. In: Human Computer Interaction, vol. 15, pp. 75–106 (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Bergman, O., Boardman, R., Gwizdka, J., Jones, W.P.: Personal information management. In: CHI 2004 extended abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1598–1599. ACM Press, Vienna (2004)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  4. Jones, W., Teevan, J.: Personal information management. University of Washington Press (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Whittaker, S.: Personal Information Management: From Information Consumption to Curation. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 45, 3–62 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Barreau, D.K.: Context as a factor in personal information management systems. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 46(5), 327–339 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Barreau, D.K., Nardi, B.A.: Finding and reminding: file organization from the desktop. SIGCHI Bulletin 27(3), 39–43 (1995)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Whittaker, S., Sidner, C.: Email overload: exploring personal information management of email. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Common Ground, pp. 276–283. ACM Press, Vancouver (1996)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. Abrams, D., Baecker, R., Chignell, M.: Information archiving with bookmarks: personal Web space construction and organization. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 41–48. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co, Los Angeles, CA (1998)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Jones, W., Bruce, H., Dumais, S.: Keeping found things found on the web. In: Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Knowledge Management, pp. 119–126. ACM Press, Atlanta (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Boardman, R., Spence, R., Sasse, M.A.: Too many hierarchies? The daily struggle for control of the workspace. In: Jacko, J., Stephanidis, C. (eds.) HCI International, Crete, Greece, vol. 1, pp. 616–620. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Bellotti, V., Smith, I.: Informing the design of an information management system with iterative fieldwork. In: Proceedings of the Conference on Designing Interactive Systems: Processes, Practices, Methods, and Techniques, pp. 227–237. ACM Press, New York (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  13. Bergman, O., Beyth-Marom, R., Nachmias, R.: The user-subjective approach to personal information management systems. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 54(9), 872–878 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Bergman, O., Beyth-Marom, R., Nachmias, R.: The user-subjective approach to personal information management systems design - evidence and implementations. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 59(2), 235–246 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Bergman, O., Tucker, S., Beyth-Marom, R., Cutrell, E., Whittaker, S.: It’s not that important: Demoting personal information of low subjective importance using Gray Area. In: CHI 2009 Conference on Human Factors and Computing Systems, Boston, USA (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Kwasnik, B.H.: The importance of factors that are not document attributes in the organization of personal documents. Journal of Documentation 47, 389–398 (1991)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Taylor, R.S.: Value Added Processes in Information Systems. Ablex Publishing, Norwood (1986)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Jones, W., Phuwanartnurak, A.J., Gill, R., Bruce, H.: Don’t take my folders away! Organizing personal information to get things done. In: CHI 2005 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press, Portland (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Dourish, P., Edwards, W.K., LaMarca, A., Salisbury, M.: Presto: an experimental architecture for fluid interactive document spaces. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interactions 6(2), 133–161 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Freeman, E., Gelernter, D.: Lifestreams: a storage model for personal data. SIGMOD Record 25 (1), 80–86 (1996), http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/381854.381893

  21. Jones, W., Munat, C.F., Bruce, H.: The Universal Labeler: Plan the Project and Let Your Information Follow. In: 2005 Annual Meeting: Sparking Synergies: Bringing Research and Practice Together, Charlotte, NC (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Kaptelinin, V.: UMEA: translating interaction histories into project contexts. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 353–360. ACM Press, Ft. Lauderdale (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Karger, D.R., Quan, D.: Collections: flexible, essential tools for information management. In: CHI 2004 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM Press, Vienna (2004), http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/985921.986013

  24. Bergman, O., Beyth-Marom, R., Nachmias, R.: The Project Fragmentation Problem in Personal Information Management. In: CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 271–274. ACM Press, Montreal (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Boardman, R., Spence, R., Sasse, M.A.: Too many hierarchies? The daily struggle for control of the workspace. In: Jacko, J., Stephanidis, C. (eds.) HCI International 2003, Crete, Greece, pp. 616–620. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, New Jersey (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Dumais, S., Cutrell, E., Cadiz, J., Jancke, G., Sarin, R., Robbins, D.C.: Stuff I’ve seen: a system for personal information retrieval and re-use. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Informaion Retrieval, pp. 72–79. ACM Press, Canada (2003)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  27. Fertig, S., Freeman, E., Gelernter, D.: Lifestreams: an alternative to the desktop metaphor. In: Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Common Ground, pp. 410–411. ACM Press, Canada (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Dourish, P., Edwards, W.K., LaMarca, A., Salisbury, M.: Presto: an experimental architecture for fluid interactive document spaces. ACM Trans. Comput-Hum. Interact. 6(2), 133–161 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Bergman, O., Beyth-Marom, R., Nachmias, R., Gradovitch, N., Whittaker, S.: Improved search engines and navigation preference in personal information management. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 26(4), 1–24 (2008), http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1402256.1402259

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Jones, W.: Finders, keepers? The present and future perfect in support of personal in-formation management. First Monday 9(3) (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Neisser, U.: Visual Search. Scientific American 210(6), 94–102 (1964)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Treisman, A., Gelade, G.: A feature-integration theory of attention. Cognitive Psychology 12, 97–136 (1980)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Whittaker, S., Hirschberg, J.: The character, value, and management of personal paper archives. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction 8(2), 150–170 (2001), http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/376929.376932

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Bellotti, V., Ducheneaut, N., Howard, M., Smith, I., Grinter, R.E.: Quality versus quantity: E-mail-centric task management and its relation with overload. Human Computer Interaction 20, 89–138 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Whittaker, S.: Supporting collaborative task management in email. In: Human Computer Interaction, vol. 20, pp. 49–88 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Whittaker, S., Jones, Q., Terveen, L.: Contact management: Identifying contacts to support long term communication. In: Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, pp. 216–225 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  37. Boardman, R., Sasse, M.A.: “Stuff goes into the computer and doesn’t come out": a cross-tool study of personal information management. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 583–590. ACM Press, Vienna (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  38. Kirk, D., Sellen, A., Rother, C., Wood, K.: Understanding photowork. Paper presented at the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Montreal (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Kahneman, D., Tversky, A.: Prospect theory: an analysis of decision making under risk. Eugene, Ore. (1979)

    Google Scholar 

  40. Capra, R.G., Pérez-Quiñones, M.A.: Using Web Search Engines to Find and Refind Information Computer 38(10), 36–42 (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Teevan, J., Alvarado, C., Ackerman, M.S., Karger, D.R.: The perfect search engine is not enough: a study of orienteering behavior in directed search. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 415–422. ACM Press, Vienna (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Jones, W., Karger, D., Bergman, O., Franklin, M., Pratt, W., Bates, M.: Towards a unification & integration of PIM support. National Science Foundation, Seattle, WA (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  43. Chalmers, M.: A Historical View of Context. In: Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), vol. 13(3), pp. 223–247 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Dey, A.K.: Understanding and using context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 5(1), 4–7 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Dourish, P.: What we talk about when we talk about context. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing 8(1), 19–30 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Zacarias, M.: Conceptual Framework based on Agents and Contexts for the Alignment between Individuals and Organizations. Universidade Técnica de Lisboa, Lisbon (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  47. Cutrell, E., Robbins, D.C., Dumais, S.T., Sarin, R.: Fast, Flexible Filtering with Phlat: Per-sonal Search and Organization Made Easy. In: CHI 2006 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 261–270. ACM Press, Montreal (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  48. Medlin, D.L., Schaffer, M.M.: Context theory of classification learning. Psychological Review 85, 207–238 (1978)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Saracevic, T.: Information science. Journal of the American Society for Information Science 50(12), 1051–1063 (1999)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Schamber, L.: Relevance and information behavior. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology 29, 3–48 (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  51. Malone, T.W.: How do people organize their desks? Implications for the design of office information systems. ACM Transactions on Office Information Systems 1, 99–112 (1983)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. Bush, V.: As we think. The Atlantic Monthly 176(1), 101–108 (1945)

    Google Scholar 

  53. Hill, W.C., Hollan, J.D.: History-enriched digital objects: prototypes and policy issues. The Information Society 10(2), 139–145 (1994)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Hill, W.C., Hollan, J.D., Wroblewski, D., McCandless, T.: Edit wear and read wear. Paper presented at the Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Monterey, CA (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  55. Lansdale, M.W.: The psychology of personal information management. Applied Ergonomics 19(1), 55–66 (1988)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Cutrell, E., Dumais, S.T., Teevan, J.: Searching to eliminate personal information management. Communications of the ACM 49(1), 58–64 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Dourish, P., Edwards, W.K., LaMarca, A., Lamping, J., Petersen, K., Salisbury, M., Terry, D.B., Thornton, J.: Extending document management systems with user-specific active properties. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 18(2), 140–170 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Dumais, S.T., Cutrell, E., Cadiz, J.J., Jancke, G., Sarin, R., Robbins, D.C.: Stuff I’ve seen: a system for personal information retrieval and re-use. In: Proceedings of the 26th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pp. 72–79. ACM Press, Toronto (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  59. Fertig, S., Freeman, E., Gelernter, D.: Finding and reminding reconsidered. SIGCHI Bulletin 28(1), 66–69 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Fertig, S., Freeman, E., Gelernter, D.: Lifestreams: an alternative to the desktop metaphor. In: Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Common Ground, pp. 410–411. ACM Press, Canada (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  61. Raskin, J.: The humane interface: new directions for designing interactive systems. ACM Press/Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Boston (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  62. Kaplan, S.J., Kapor, M.D., Belove, E.J., Landsman, R.A., Drake, T.R.: Agenda: a personal information manager. Communications of the ACM 33(7), 105–116 (1990)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Quan, D., Bakshi, K., Huynh, D., Karger, D.R.: User Interfaces for Supporting Multiple Categorization. In: Rauterberg, M. (ed.) Proc. of INTERACT 2003, pp. 228–235. IOS Press, Amsterdam (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  64. Agrawal, R., Bayardo, R.J., Srikant, R.: Athena: Mining-Based Interactive Management of Text Databases. In: Zaniolo, C., Grust, T., Scholl, M.H., Lockemann, P.C. (eds.) EDBT 2000. LNCS, vol. 1777, pp. 365–379. Springer, Heidelberg (2000)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  65. Cutting, D.R., Karger, D.R., Pedersen, J.O., Tukey, J.W.: Scatter/Gather: a cluster-based ap-proach to browsing large document collections. In: Proceedings of the 15th Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval, pp. 318–329. ACM Press, Denmark (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  66. Siersdorfer, S., Sizov, S.: Meta methods for model sharing in personal information systems. ACM Trans. Inf. Syst. 26(4), 1–35 (2008), http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1402256.1402261

    Article  Google Scholar 

  67. Witten, I.H., Frank, E.: Data Mining: Practical machine learning tools and techniques, 2nd edn. Morgan Kaufmann, San Francisco (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  68. Bergman, O.: The use of subjective attributes in personal information management systems. Ph.D. Dissertation (in Hebrew), Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, Israel (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  69. Civan, A., Jones, W., Klasnja, P., Bruce, H.: Better to Organize Personal Information by Folders Or by Tags?: The Devil Is in the Details. Paper Presented at the 68th Annual Meeting of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, ASIST, Columbus, OH (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  70. Bergman, O., Whittaker, S., Sanderson, M., Nachmias, R., Ramamoorthy, A.: The effect of folder structure on personal file navigation. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology 61(12), 2426–2441 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. Shneiderman, B., Plaisant, C.: Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 5th edn. Addison-Wesley Publ. Co., Reading (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Information Science, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan, Israel

    Ofer Bergman

Authors
  1. Ofer Bergman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. UAlg Informatics Lab, University of Algarve , Campus de Gambelas, 8000-062, Faro, Portugal

    Marielba Zacarias  & José Valente de Oliveira  & 

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Bergman, O. (2012). The User-Subjective Approach to Personal Information Management: From Theory to Practice. In: Zacarias, M., de Oliveira, J.V. (eds) Human-Computer Interaction: The Agency Perspective. Studies in Computational Intelligence, vol 396. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25691-2_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-25691-2_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-25690-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-25691-2

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics