Documents at hand: learning from paper to improve digital technologies

In this paper the results of a two-year ethnographic study of the personal document management of 28 information workers is described. Both the paper and digital domain were taken into account during the study. The results reaffirmed that document management is strongly related to task management. Digital tools do not adequately support two important user needs related to task management, namely that documents should be embedded within meaningful (task-related) context information, and that they should be easily accessible for regrouping as the task goes on. In contrast, paper supports these needs very well. Following a discussion of personal document management using paper, email, and digital file folder structures, six implications are outlined for the design of digital document management systems that combine the advantages of both domains.