Finders/keepers: A longitudinal study of people managing information scraps in a micro-note tool

Abstract

Mainstream PIM tools capture only a portion of the information that people need to manage. Many information scraps seem to exist that don't make their way into these tools, instead being relegated to sticky notes, text files, and other makeshift storage, or simply being lost. In an effort to understand the role of these information scraps, the underlying needs they reflect, and the way PIM tools must be modified to support those needs, we created List-it, a micronote tool for quick and simple capture of information scraps.

In this article, we analyze the notes and interaction logs of 420 volunteer users of List-it over a two-year period of study (August 2008-August 2010). We contextualize our analysis with results of two surveys and an e-mail interview we conducted in October 2009. We find that people are drawn to List-it by the ease and speed of note capture and by the ability to record scraps with arbitrary content that blends or completely escapes the types and roles imposed by our rigid PIM tools. Notes are taken to serve a variety of needs -- reminding, reference, journaling/activity logging, brainstorming, and to indefinitely archive information of sentimental or personal value. Finally, while people differ considerably in the ways they keep information, our findings suggest such differences can be described as a combination of four distinct strategies, enriching the Filer/Piler distinction identified for classic document management.