Brief Annotated Bibliography on E-mail Research

Relationship between alternative e-mail organizational strategies and time required for the strategy is modeled mathematically at the keystroke level (for five users). Author separates e-mail user types into Beginner, Frequent Filer, Spring Clearner, and No Filer, and found that (a) if stored messages are less than 100, having no folders is efficient; (b) zero to three folders are less efficient than four to 20 in terms of folder searching, (c) more than 30 folders is not efficient in general, (d) time differences across strategies are insignificant provided stored messages number less than a few thousand, (e) file cleanups are less efficient, and (f) folder-dependent searches are more efficient than folder-independent ones (p. 112).