“I Thought You Would Show Me How to Do It" - Studying and Supporting PIM Strategy Changes

This article presents an unexplored perspective in personal information management (PIM): PIM strategy changes. In the first part of the paper, we introduce a naturalistic study we conducted in order to explore how people manage their information and how their strategies evolve. We propose a model for characterizing PIM strategy changes based on their cause, scope and action. Further, we present colateral user problems and needs found during the study. The second part of the paper presents WotanEye, a software tool making use of information visualization techniques for reflecting the usage, hidden structure and patterns of personal information, towards alternative ways of managing PI and reflecting on one’s own PIM strategies.