Paper Reading #17: Agent-Assisted Task Management that Reduces Email Overload

Comments:
Comment 1
Comment 2 

Reference Information:
Title: Agent-Assisted Task Management that Reduces Email Overload
Authors: Andrew Faulring, Brad Myers, Ken Mohnkern, Bradley Schmerl, Aaron Steinfeld,
John Zimmerman, Asim Smailagic, Jeffery Hansen, and Daniel Siewiorek
Venue: IUI 

Summary:
The authors begin by discussing the inadequacies of current e-mail structure. They find that it is far too difficult to navigate through all of the e-mails received to find the ones that are important. They therefore proposed a solution known as RADAR which would ease the process of finding e-mails. The system would prune current e-mails for relevant tasks and then scan all future e-mails for signs of these tasks. E-mails would then be sorted based on all identified tasks and in theory the user would have an easier time locating important e-mails. Tests showed that users performed better in finding e-mails when using RADAR.

Discussion:
While this is an interesting idea, I guess I don't have enough trouble with my e-mail to get excited about this. The fact that the tests indicated it helped shows that it could be a useful technology, but do so many people face this problem that a solution is needed? I am pretty sure that if this ever became available to me I would not use it as it would only complicate a very simple procedure.