Paper mail is here to stay – report “The Future of Paper Mail in a Digital Age''

Letter Mail is here to stay and will not be taken over by electronic mail according to a newly published report1 by the Digital World Research Centre (DWRC), based at the University of Surrey, one of the UK's leading academic research establishments looking at how people interact with digital technology.

DWRC's report “The Future of Paper Mail in a Digital Age'' suggests that
email is going to have to take on the properties of letters before it
becomes accepted into daily domestic use.

“We know that people readily use email in the office – it's quick and
easy to use, and people are sitting by their screens, but for use in the home,
it is difficult to see how email can replace paper mail, comments Dr Richard
Harper, Director of Digital World Research.

He continues: “It is not simply a question of getting the right screen
technologies, although at the moment they are still too cumbersome.''

* The real issue is that email tools have been designed in a way that
reflects how people behave in offices, they haven't been designed for how
people behave in the home.

* The way they use information is different and the way they manage that
information is different too. The properties of paper mail are
particularly important in supporting how people use information in the home.
Screen-based information delivered via email cannot so easily support these needs.

Dr Harper concludes: “We think email will have a place in the home of
the future, but it will not be able to replace all the functions of paper
mail''.

The report from DWRC's ethnographic study discusses how paper mail has
other uses or properties and serves a number of functions in the household
which email cannot imitate or compete with.

The research sponsored by Royal Mail threw up some interesting
observations on how people interact with paper mail. The researchers found
that letters do much more than their simple communication function. Brian
Shatwell, Head of Future Technologies Group for Royal Mail said; “Letters
are used as an invaluable social tool. We have found fascinating relationships
and roles that occur within the household when the mail arrives. Especially
affecting women, these roles will be much more difficult in an increasingly
digital age.''

Dr Richard Harper, further explains, “After the letter first arrives on
the doormat, it goes through different stages before finally being filed
or thrown away. And, interestingly, these stages are dependent on the natural
flow of family life in each household.''

Letters are used as reminders for example bills are left on the kitchen
table or bottom of stairs and bedside cabinet because they will be 'bumped
into' by everyone who needs to see them. Parents with teenage children
leave mobile telephone bills outside their bedroom doors to ensure they see the
costs and to initiate a family discussion on who was going to pay the
bill.
Clothing catalogues are left by a couch to be viewed later over a cup of
tea.
Letters that need replying to are put in handbags or jacket pockets to
serve as an immediate reminder for the person leaving the house later.

In fact the research found it is the women who are manipulating the mail
flow through the house as part of managing and controlling the household.
Women are the ones to first skim and sort the letters and it is women who
actively position letters in strategic places in the home for other people
to see. For example, they put bills in places where husbands will see them
and then they keep track of whether the husband sees the bill. After a day or
two the bill will be taken away and paid by the women. In this way, men think
they are in charge but in fact it is women who do all the work.

At present, email technologies cannot allow women to do these things.
“In the home, email would have to become more accessible'', says Dr Richard
Harper.

Letter mail is inherently shareable and supports domestic interaction but
email is inherently private, focused onto the individual's screen. In fact
we found when householders were using email, they printed off the messages
and used them like letters around the house to remind them to do things and to
share the information.'' Continues Dr Harper; “One of the important facts
of using paper based mail is that the information is in a form to be shared
and broadcast to the rest of the household and it appears it really doesn't
matter who the letter is addressed to.''

The research found that these interactions and functions of paper mail
were unaffected by the timing of mail arriving at a household. In most
cases over half of respondents have left the house before the mail arrives. For
those present in the morning when the mail arrives, they still carried out
the same scenario of sorting, prioritising and moving mail around the house
according to the natural flow of events in the household.

Other interesting facts discussed in the report indicated that paper mail
provides extra information about the sender and topic which email does
not. People skim and intuitively sort the mail when it arrives. Explains Brian
Shatwell: “Mail is sorted through a process of “triage''. They classify
and prioritise letters at a glance, by using the design, branding and
addressing of envelopes for clues. Currently email does not offer a quick way of
sorting through messages''.

:: Note to editors

Additional Survey Notes:

Research activities consisted of ethnographic studies of a panel of 12
households, a survey of over 200 mail users; and experiments into paper
and email recognition and sorting behaviours * Email will provide an addition
to rather than a replacement of certain categories of mail, such as bills.

The full report can be obtained from the DWRC, University of Surrey.

1 The Future of Paper-Mail in the Digital Age: an investigation into the
affordances of paper. Harper, R., Watson, D.R., Evergeti, V., Hamill, L.,
Moray, N. The Digital World Research Centre, School of Human Sciences,
University of Surrey.

:: About DWRC:

The Digital World Research Centre (DWRC) is an international research
centre, based at the University of Surrey, which has been specially
created to provide organisations with academic research into how people interact with digital technology.

DWRC seeks to understand what new technologies people might want and find
valuable. It investigates how new technologies are changing daily lives
and how daily life is changing technology. DWRC also studies how technologies
affect and are affected by society, government and the marketplace.

DWRC brings together top expertise from a range of academic disciplines
which includes sociology, psychology, economics, communications
engineering, human factors engineering and human-computer interaction (HCI).

Current research includes:
* Studies of new user-centred services for mobile phones

* Evaluations of inter active channels in retail services

* The functions of paper-based communications in the digital age

* The impact of changes in multimedia entertainment in the home

* The potential contribution of IST to economic sustainability

* New tools for information re-use on knowledge work.

* Smart homes and smart technologies

UNs For further information contact: Dr Richard Ha
rper, Digital World Research Centre, University of Surrey, Tel: 01483 259446, Email: dwrcsurrey.ac.uk

Andrea Tams/Hilary Robinson, Cobalt Blue Marketing Communications, Tel:
01252 728040,Email: richardvcobaltblue.com

Prafula Shah/Patrick O'Neill, The Post Office Newsroom, Tel: 020 7320
7314 or 020 7250 2246