Should I open this email?: inbox-level cues, curiosity and attention to email

The quantity of email people receive each day can be overwhelming. Previous research suggests that when handling email, individuals prioritize certain messages for attention over others. Since people generally make this decision about which message to read before opening the email, the question largely unanswered in the email literature is: what surface features of an email draw attention to it? In this research, we examined how top-level cues about an email’s content influence attention to email. We describe results from a think-aloud study examining people’s stated rationale for prioritizing certain emails over others. Based on these results and theory on curiosity, we conducted an experiment examining how message importance, subject line specificity, workload and personal utility influence attention to email. Results suggest that uncertainty about message content at the inbox level increases the likelihood of attention to a message. The influence of uncertainty diminishes, howe...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2011
• Where: CHI
• Authors: Jaclyn Wainer, Laura Dabbish, Robert Kraut
• Keywords: CHI 2011, Electronic Mail, Human Computer Interaction, Information Gap, Personal Utility