{"id":1170,"date":"2020-04-21T15:59:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/?p=1170"},"modified":"2020-04-21T15:59:21","modified_gmt":"2020-04-21T19:59:21","slug":"04-22-2020-palakh-mignonne-jude-opportunities-for-automating-email-processing-a-need-finding-study","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/2020\/04\/21\/04-22-2020-palakh-mignonne-jude-opportunities-for-automating-email-processing-a-need-finding-study\/","title":{"rendered":"04\/22\/2020 – Palakh Mignonne Jude – Opportunities for Automating Email Processing: A Need-Finding Study"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

SUMMARY<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In this paper, the authors conduct a mixed-methods investigation to identify the expectations of users in terms of automated email handling as well as the information and computation required to support the same. They divided their study into 3 probes \u2013 \u2018Wishful Thinking\u2019, \u2018Existing Automation Software\u2019, and \u2018Field Deployment of Simple Inbox Scripting\u2019.\u00a0 The first probe was conducted in two stages. The first stage included a formative design workshop wherein the researchers enlisted 13 computer science students that were well-versed with programming to create rules. The second stage was a survey that enlisted 77 participants from a private university including 48% without technical backgrounds. The authors identified that there was a need for automated systems to have richer data models, use internal\/external context, manage attention, alter the presentation of the inbox. In the second probe, the authors mined GitHub repositories to identify needs that programmers had implemented. \u00a0Some of the additional needs they identified included processing, organizing, and archiving content, altering the default presentation of email clients, email analytics and productivity tools. As part of the third probe, the authors deployed their \u2018YouPS\u2019 system that enables users to process email rules in Python. For this probe, they enlisted 12 email users (all of whom could code in Python). Common themes across the rules generated include the creation of email modes, leveraging interaction history, and a non-use of existing email client features. The authors found that users did indeed desire more automation in their email management especially in terms of richer data models, internal and time-varying external context, and automated content processing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

REFLECTION<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I liked the overall motivation of the study and especially\nresonated with the need of automated content processing <\/em>as I would\ndefinitely benefit from having mail attachments downloaded and stored\nappropriately. The subjects that mentioned a reaction to signal if a message\nwas viewed reminded me about Slack\u2019s interface that allows you to \u2018Add reaction\u2019.\nI also believe that having a tagging feature would be good to ensure that key\nrespondents are alerted of tasks that must be performed by them (especially in case\nof longer emails).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I liked the setup of Probe 3 and found that this was an\ninteresting study. However, I wonder about the adoptability of such a system\nand as mentioned by the authors in the future work, I would be very interested\nin knowing how non-programmers would make use of these rules via the use of a drag-and-drop\nGUI. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The authors found that the subjects (10 out of 12) preferred\nto write rules in Python rather than use the mail client\u2019s interface. This\nreminded me of prior discussions in class for the paper \u2018Agency plus\nautomation: Designing artificial intelligence into interactive systems\u2019 wherein\nwe discussed how humans prefer to be in control of the system and the level of\nautomation that users desire (in a broader context). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

QUESTIONS<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
  1. The\nstudies conducted include participants that had an average age group that was\nless than 30 and most of whom were affiliated with a university. Would the\nneeds of business professionals vary in anyway as compared to the ones\nidentified in this study? <\/li>
  2. Would\nbusiness organizations be welcoming of a platform such as the YouPS system?\nWould this raise any security concerns considering that the system is able to\naccess the data stored in the emails?<\/li>
  3. How\nwould to rate the design of the YouPS interface? Do you see yourself using such\na system to develop rules for your email?<\/li>
  4. Are\nthere any needs, in addition to the ones mentioned in this paper, that you feel\nshould be added?<\/li>
  5. The\nauthors state that even though 2\/3 studies focused on programmers, the needs\nidentified were similar between programmers and non-programmers. Do you agree\nwith this justification? Was there any bias that could have crept in as part of\nthis experimental setup?<\/li><\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    SUMMARY In this paper, the authors conduct a mixed-methods investigation to identify the expectations of users in terms of automated email handling as well as the information and computation required to support the same. They divided their study into 3 probes \u2013 \u2018Wishful Thinking\u2019, \u2018Existing Automation Software\u2019, and \u2018Field Deployment of Simple Inbox Scripting\u2019.\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":288,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[106,108],"class_list":["post-1170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class14","tag-emailprocessing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/288"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1170"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1172,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1170\/revisions\/1172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs6724s20\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}