The Myth of the Paperless Office

by Sellen, Abigail J.; Harper, Richard H. R.

• ISBN13: 9780262692830
• ISBN10: 026269283X
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-02-28
• Publisher: The MIT Press

Summary

Over the past thirty years, many people have proclaimed the imminent arrival of the paperless office. Yet even the World Wide Web, which allows almost any computer to read and display another computer's documents, has increased the amount of printing done. The use of e-mail in an organization causes an average 40 percent increase in paper consumption. In The Myth of the Paperless Office, Abigail Sellen and Richard Harper use the study of paper as a way to understand the work that people do and the reasons they do it the way they do. Using the tools of ethnography and cognitive psychology, they look at paper use from the level of the individual up to that of organizational culture. Central to Sellen and Harper's investigation is the concept of "affordances" -- the activities that an object allows, or affords. The physical properties of paper (its being thin, light, porous, opaque, and flexible) afford the human actions of grasping, carrying, folding, writing, and so on. The concept of affordance allows them to compare the affordances of paper with those of existing digital devices. They can then ask what kinds of devices or systems would make new kinds of activities possible or better support current activities. The authors argue that paper will continue to play an important role in office life. Rather than pursue the ideal of the paperless office, we should work toward a future in which paper and electronic document tools work in concert and organizational processes make optimal use of both.

Author Biography

Abigail J. Sellen is a cognitive psychologist at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories in Bristol, UK Richard H. R. Harper is Director of the Digital World Research Centre at the University of Surrey, UK

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Introduction	1	(22)
What's Wrong with Paper?	23	(28)
Paper in Knowledge Work	51	(24)
Reading from Paper	75	(32)
Paper in Support of Working Together	107	(32)
Designing New Technologies	139	(46)
The Future of Paper	185	(28)
Notes	213	(6)
References	219	(4)
Index	223