Working 9-5? Professional differences in email and boundary management practices

Technology not only brings benefits such as flexible working practices but can also have negative stressful consequences such as increasing email overload and the blurring of work-home boundaries. We report on an exploratory study that extends the current understanding of email usage by investigating how different professions at a university manage work and personal emails using different devices and how this impacts their work-home boundary management. Our findings lead us to identify two user groups: Those with permeable boundaries (primarily academics) and those who have more rigid ones (primarily professional services employees) and that there are differences in when, where and how they manage their work and personal emails. In particular we find that some participants use micro-boundary strategies to manage transitions between work and personal life. Based on these novel findings we propose improvements of email software design to facilitate effective email, work-home boundary management, and micro-boundary practices

Smartwatches: The good, the bad and the Ugly?

Wearable computers are expected to become the next big thing but popular press is divided on whether they will be successful. In this paper we review the existing literature on one type of wearable-smartwatches-and extend their definition, in addition to highlighting the need to understand users' everyday appropriation of these technologies. We present initial findings from an on going interview study with ten early adopters that is, to the best of our knowledge, the first to investigate why and how people use smartwatches in real life. We describe everyday use of smartwatches, highlight the added value seen by users, and identify the limitations to mass adoption as expressed by current users