Research in PIM (Richard Boardman)

Who's working on Personal Information Management?

Authored by Richard Boardman, Imperial College London (July 2003):

• This page is an ongoing attempt to survey current efforts directed at understanding and improving interfaces for Personal Information Management (PIM for short), defined as: the collecting and handling of information (such as files, email and contacts) by an individual, for that individual's own use.
• Whittaker, Terveen and Nardi (2000) note the lack of systematic research within HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) directed at core everyday computing tasks. HCI conferences continue to be dominated by radical technological invention in areas such as virtual reality and ubiquitous computing. Because of this emphasis HCI is not paying enough attention to the problems encountered in "the tasks carried out by millions of users multiple times a day" (Whittaker et al. 2000). And whats more: there is mounting evidence (both scientific and anecdotal) of the problems encountered by users in these everyday tasks - tasks such as PIM.
• Despite the relative lack of published research on PIM, there are a number of ongoing efforts aimed at understanding user needs, and improving interface support for this fundamental everyday computing activity. This page is an attempt to survey it.
• The page is divided into two sections: (1) [#PEOPLE researchers/developers/groups] and, (2) [#SYSTEMS systems/prototypes]. The focus is mainly on research being carried out in the field of HCI. However I've also included researchers from other academic fields, and also commercial companies/open-source developers. The emphasis is on people/companies doing active research/development.
• I hope its useful! Watch this space for future additions! If you have any suggestions of people to add, @ic.ac.uk please let me know.
• For a list of publications relating to PIM (and links to other online bibliographies) see my updated bibliography

==List of Researchers/Developers/Groups working on PIM**

• Brian Amento, AT&T, USA
• Ofer Bergman, Tel Aviv University, Israel
• Richard Boardman, Imperial College London, UK
• Jay Budzik, Northwestern University, USA
• Andy Cockburn, University of Canterbury, NZ
• Paul Dourish, UC-Irvine, USA
• David Gelernter, Yale University (and Scopeware), USA
• Daniel Goncalves, Instituto Superior T�cnico, Lisbon, Portugal
• Saul Greenberg, University of Calgary, Canada
• Jacek Gwizdka, University of Toronto, Canada
• Sarah Henderson, University of Auckland, NZ
• Haystack
  • David Huynh, MIT, USA
  • Dennis Quan, MIT, USA
  • Jaime Teevan, MIT, USA
• Ellen Isaacs, USA
• Victor Kaptelinin, Umea University, Sweden
• KFTF (keeping Found Things Found), University of Washington, USA
  • Harry Bruce
  • Susan Dumais (also Microsoft, USA)
  • William Jones
• David Kirsh, UCSD, USA
• Mark Lansdale, Loughborough University, UK
• Microsoft
  • Gordon Bell, Microsoft, USA
  • Ed Cutrell, Microsoft, USA
  • Mary Czerwinski, Microsoft, USA
  • MyLifeBits Project, Microsoft, USA
  • George Robertson, Microsoft, USA
  • Kerry Rodden, Microsoft, UK
  • Social Computing Group, Microsoft, USA
  • Gina Venolia, Microsoft, USA
• Bonnie Nardi, USA
• Open Source Applications Foundation
  • Andy Hertzfeld, Open Source Applications Foundation, USA (previously Eazel)
  • Mitch Kapor, Open Source Applications Foundation, USA
• PARC
  • Victoria Bellotti, PARC, USA
  • Nicholas Duchaneaut, (also SIMS, Berkeley)
  • Ian Smith, PARC, USA
• Rodney Peters, Georgia Tech, USA
• Jef Raskin, USA
• Abigail Sellen, Hewlett-Packard, UK
• Loren Terveen, University of Minnesota, USA
• Total Recall, University of Southern California, USA
• Steve Whittaker, Sheffield University, UK
• David Wolber, SFU, USA
• Eric Zimmerman, Bar-Ilan University, Israel

List of Classic/Research/Open-source/Commercial Systems

• "Classics"
  • Agenda, Lotus
  • BeOS, Be Inc.
  • The Memex, Vannevar Bush
• Research Systems
  • ContactMap
  • HayStack, MIT
  • MyLifeBits, Microsoft
  • Personal Web, SFU
  • Stuff I've Seen/Landmarks, Microsoft
  • Presto/Harland, PARC
  • TaskMaster, PARC
  • UMEA, Umea University
  • Visual Knowledge Builder, Texas A&M University
  • [./research/pubs/struggle-hcii2003.pdf WorkspaceMirror], Imperial College London
• Standards/Open-source/Free/Shareware PIM Systems
  • Chandler, Open Source Applications Foundation
  • Dashboard,
  • GNOME PIM,
  • IdeaGraph,
  • KDE PIM,
  • Mozilla, The Mozilla Organization (NB: many variants)
  • newdocms
  • segusoLand
  • SyncML
  • THE (The Humane Environment), Jef Raskin and co.
  • Wintermute
  • Bookmark managers: BookKey, Compass
• Commercial Systems
  • Enfish Onespace, Enfish Corp.
  • HelloWorld, Cooperating Systems, Inc
  • Evolution, Ximian Inc., USA
  • Entourage, iApps, MacOS, ..., Apple Inc.
  • InfoSelect, Micro Logic Corp.
  • Mobile/PDA devices
    • Blackberry, Research In Motion Limited
    • Nokia, Finland
    • Palm, Palm Inc, USA
    • Symbian, Symbian Ltd, UK
  • Opera, Opera Software ASA
  • Outlook, Windows, ..., Microsoft
  • Project Looking Glass, Sun
  • Scopeware, Scopeware Inc. (commercial version of LifeStreams)
  • SixDegrees, Creo Inc.
  • Spring, UserCreations LLC
  • BookmarkSync, SyncIT
  • The Brain, TheBrain Technologies Corp.
  • Tinderbox, EastGate Systems Inc.
  • Treepad
  • Yahoo Web-based PIM Applications, Yahoo! Inc (many many other web-based PIM applications, too many to mention - but see here!)
  • YelloPen , YelloPen Inc.
  • Zoot, Zoot Software
  • And there's many many more ... see Yahoo's PIM software pageBack to Top of page

Updated July 2003 by @ic.ac.uk Richard Boardman