Opportunities and Barriers to Portable Document Scanning · research looking at document scanner use. With a few notable exceptions, scanning – be it in the home or the office –

Opportunities and Barriers to Portable Document Scanning

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© Springer-Verlag London LtdPersonal Technologies (2000) 4:73-85

1. Introduction

Scanners are now one of the most popular add-ondevices sold for the PC. Second only to the printer,sales reached 14 million units by 1998 [1], and themarket currently shows no sign of abating. Despitethis popularity, there has been very little publishedresearch looking at document scanner use. With afew notable exceptions, scanning – be it in thehome or the office – has had little attention. Thisis unfortunate, and not just for the gap in ourknowledge that it presents. Many discussions ofdocument technology depend upon a notion ofone’s documents existing exclusively, or at leastpredominantly, as electronic documents. Forexample, a recent paper by Buscher et al. describesa system (called “manufaktur”) where documentsare manipulated and shared in a virtual envir-onment [2]. There is an implicit assumption thatdocuments that are only available in paper form(such as books, magazines and other externallyproduced materials) will be scanned as a matter ofcommon practice. There is no discussion of thelaborious, low-status work which is needed toscan in documents. To reach their full potential,these mixed reality environments or electronicdocument systems depend upon documentscanning to make paper documents availableelectronically. These sorts of assumptions can also

Opportunities and Barriers to PortableDocument Scanning

Barry A. T. Brown1, Abigail J. Sellen1 and Kenton P. O’Hara2

1Hewlett-Packard Research Labs, Bristol, UK; 2Appliance Design Studio, Bristol, UK

Abstract: While electronic documents are increasingly prevalent in the workplace there are many texts – such as books, magazines andletters – which are not easily available in an electronic form. Since many electronic document systems depend upon documents existingexclusively, or at least predominantly, in electronic form, this suggests an opportunity for document scanning technology. However,conventional scanners are limited by their large size and relatively cumbersome usage. Using a diary-based methodology, this study investigatedthe use of a new portable document scanning technology. In this paper we explore the need for document scanning, and how this portabledevice was used by our study participants. Document scanning is shown to be a goal-driven activity – individuals did not scan just to have anelectronic version of a document, but to do something with electronic documents, in particular, distributing documents to others, archivingdocuments and reusing documents. The small design of this device also enabled a mode of usage distinct from that of conventional flatbedscanners. Its size meant that the device was a personal, rather than shared technology; that it could be easily stored when not being used; andthat the scanner could be carried to the materials to be scanned, rather than the materials brought to the scanner. We discuss this interactionwith the local environment as a case of “local mobility” – this is less to do with portability but with how a device’s small size can make it fitbetter into work environments.

Keywords: Diary studies; Digital documents; Information appliances; Mobile devices; Paper use; Scanning

be seen in other work involving the use ofdocuments in virtual environments [3–5].

In our own research group, we were confrontedwith these issues in relation to our research with anew kind of document scanner, a handhelddocument scanner known as the “Capshare 920”(Fig. 1). The Capshare handheld scanner is anuntethered appliance that can be used to scan andstore 50 A4 or US letter-sized pages. Capshareworks by tracking the grain of the page as it isdragged over the page in a “swipe” motion. Thedevice then stitches the page back together anddisplays it on an LCD screen on the back of thedevice where it can be viewed before sending it toa PC or printer. Capshare can scan greyscale orblack and white pages up to flipchart in size.Capshare’s mobile nature makes it a radicallydifferent sort of device from existing flatbedscanners. It can be used in situations where onedoes not have access to a PC or a network, and itcan be easily carried in a briefcase or bag. Theresearchers who worked on its design andproduction conceived of it as a “casual capture”device – one which would be used for the ad hoccapture of documents in situations outsideconventional office environments.

Since Capshare is a very different kind ofscanner than conventional flatbeds, we wereinterested in how its use would be different. In this

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paper, we discuss research which we have donelooking into how the small size of Capshare hasimplications for its use. The design of Capshare issuch that in the process of scanning, one takesthe Capshare to the object to be scanned, ratherthan the other way round (as with flatbeds).Capshare can also be stored in a desk drawer oreasily kept on a desktop without taking up muchspace. Its design also makes it possible to scansurfaces which are pinned to walls, which are insitu, and which are encountered in an ad hoc way.These issues are related to the size of the deviceand its physical mobility, but are not about“mobility” or “portability” in the way the termsare normally used.

In addition to looking at how Capshare is used,and the relationship of its use to its size andmobility, we also wanted to be able to identifypotential user needs which Capshare failed tosupport, and to discover what the barrierswere to its use. To accomplish these goals, wedeveloped a methodology involving a modifieddiary elicitation technique. Diary methods are apopular data collection technique in sociology,but are still relatively rare in technology studies.We have been developing our own form of thismethodology, with some success in the areas ofreading [6], paper use [7], and the researchbehaviour of library users [8]. The methodologywe used in this study incorporated digitalcameras as a tool to log users’ activities, givingus the ability to capture naturalistic details of workpractice without the large overhead of anobservational study. In this case, cameras wereused as a diary tool for the first phase of thestudy to uncover what initial “needs” participantssaw for a document capture device. This was

followed by a second phase where participantsactually used the Capshare device. This gave usa view of what individuals desired to scan, incontrast to what they actually scanned with ournew handheld scanner.

2. The Literature

Perhaps because it is viewed as a mundanetechnology, scanning has mostly appearedimplicitly in the literature rather than beingaddressed as a topic in its own right. It is oftentaken for granted as a prerequisite and simpleactivity. As we have already mentioned, many newprototype document systems often assume thatdocuments will be available on-line, despite thereality that there is a vast paper legacy that mostorganisations have to deal with.

Most research involving scanning systems hasavoided discussing how they are used, or how theyfit into existing practices. Technical descriptionsof scanning technology are the norm, e.g. [9–11].This is perhaps acceptable in situations wherescanning is used in the archiving of large corporaof documents, such as digital libraries. In thesesettings, archiving and integrating media are theprimary organisational goals [12]. Issues concerningthe incorporation of scanning into work practiceare less pressing, since scanning and maintainingthe scanned archive is the main task for thoseconcerned. However, these situations represent theminority of scanning sales. Most scanners arebought for use in different situations, wherescanning is only one activity amongst many – thereis little in the literature which deals with the useof scanners in these complex situations.

One exception can be found in research by Trigget al. [13]. This paper discusses the use of a scanningsystem by an urban rail engineering team. Ithighlights in detail the work which is requiredwhen keeping paper and digital documents, andthe problems that arise in managing the boundarybetween the two. The engineering team studiedused the scanning system for archiving reports anddocuments which were generated by their projectwork. In this case, the reports were cataloguedwhen they were written, and the scanningsystem used to archive the documents. Thesedocuments could then be searched via the web,and printed by team members and other membersof the organisation.

Much of Trigg et al.’s paper discusses thecategorisation schemes that were developed by the

Fig. 1. The Hewlett-Packard Capshare 920.

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team, and how they adopted and modifiedstandardised schemes for use in their ownarchiving. This discussion gives an interesting viewof archiving practices, and the problems ofmaintaining and using standardised categor-isations. However, the paper also addresses howscanning was incorporated into the work practicesof the team. For various reasons to do with theexperimental nature of the project, records werealso kept in a paper archive along with thedigital archive. Keeping the paper and thedigital records in step proved to be problematicfor staff. Some engineers used the paper records,and would then annotate, change, or recategorisethem when needed. These changes would notnormally be transferred over to the electronic copy,causing problems with mapping between the digitaland the electronic versions. Scanning in thissetting also became something of a “chore”, in thatit satisfied no short-term goals for getting the workdone; instead it was part of maintaining records sothat files could be found in the future – a longterm goal. This sort of work is likely to be oflow priority and status. Indeed, in the situationTrigg et al. investigated, the documents to bescanned were put into a pile to be fed through bythe group’s administrator. This paper highlights theutility of scanning to cross the digital–paperboundary, but also shows some of the problemswhich arise from the time-consuming nature ofexisting scanning technology.

3. Method

In this study we wanted to look at scanningpractices across a diverse range of settings andprofessions, in particular with reference to how amobile scanning device could be used. It was notan aim of the study to produce statisticallygeneralisable data. Instead, we were lookingfor a way of understanding how scanning fitsinto different occupations and work practices.Moreover, our aim was to collect in-depth data oneach individual by interviewing them over thecourse of many consecutive days. Accordingly, wedesigned and used a three-week-long diary studywith a relatively small sample of participants. Thisstudy was an attempt to understand both the newsituations in which a mobile “capture” device suchas Capshare could be used, and the design barriersto its further use.

The study was carried out in two parts. The firstpart elicited document capture requirements by

using a modified diary method. The aim here wasto understand what possibilities existed for portabledocument capture devices. The second part of thestudy equipped participants with Capshares, and asimilar methodology was used to uncover detailsabout the scanning which they actually did.

3.1. Choice of participants

In choosing our participants, we were particularlyinterested in settings where there was potentiallyhigh demand for devices such as Capshare. Thisled us to choose participants who worked in paper-intensive occupations. Also, perhaps unusually fora study concerned with mobility, we chose to focuson participants who were mainly desk-bound ratherthan mobile. Part of our rationale for this waspractical: we were looking for future markets forthe device and Capshare had already been wellresearched (internal to HP) in the context ofmobile professionals. The other reason, however,was that we were interested, not necessarily inCapshare as a device that was only used “on themove”, but rather whether the unique, compactdesign of Capshare might find its place in an officeenvironment. In other words, we were interestedin whether the design of Capshare as a mobiledevice would offer different affordances forscanning in a conventional office setting thanflatbeds do. The issue of interest, then, was to dowith the mobility of the device rather than themobility of the people who used it1.

Eleven participants were chosen in a sample ofpaper-intensive occupations, covering bothprofessional and administrative jobs (Table 1). Thescreener we used selected for participants who werePC users, received or collected information fromdocuments more than 10 times a day, and were attheir desk (or main work site) more than 80% ofthe time.

3.2. Procedure for Stage 1

Participants were equipped with digital cameras,and asked to use them to record their paper captureactivities. The participants were asked to imaginethat the camera could capture documents by justtaking a photograph of the first page. This “magiccamera” could then be used to email the document,

1Having said that, we fully expected that these mainly desk-bound individuals would sometimes be mobile both locallywithin their work settings and outside of them. These situationswere also of interest.

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print the document, or to carry out any actionspossible electronically. The emphasis was placedon participants using their imagination as muchas possible. No limit was put on how documentscould be captured, allowing individuals tospecify their “dream document capture device”.Participants were told that every time they cameacross a document they would like to captureand do something with, they were to take aphotograph of the document. The camera inthis way worked as something of a diary tool,helping them record all the documents theywanted to capture throughout the working day.Documents were described as being anythingwhich was on paper or acetate, including posters,letters, post-it notes, photos, and so on. Itwas emphasised that we were interested inhow they would use the documents they werephotographing.

Participants had the cameras for 1.5 weeks,during which time they were interviewed threetimes for between 30 minutes and 1 hour, usingthe photographs they had taken as material onwhich to base the interview. Since we had useddigital cameras, the photographs could be reviewedon the camera’s built-in LCD screen. Thesephotographs were also archived and used later inour analysis.

The interviews we conducted allowed us tobuild up considerable data on what documentsindividuals wanted to capture, where they wantedto capture them, and what stopped them doing the

capturing with the existing infrastructure. Standardquestions were asked during the interviews for eachphotograph taken including:

• Where were you when you photographed this?• Did you know what you wanted to do with it?• Would you have liked to have shared this?• Would you have liked to have used this on your

computer?• How do you normally capture this sort of thing?• How do you currently archive/send/re-use these

things?

3.3. Procedure for stage 2

In the second stage of the study, the sameparticipants were equipped with a Capsharedevice. Software was loaded onto their PCs andparticipants were equipped with a connectionbetween Capshare and their PC. This allowedthem to use Capshare when away from their PC,to capture documents which could then be sent totheir PC and stored as TIFFs, a standard formatfor scanned pages. Participants were shown howto use the scanner, how to get documents onto theirPC and how to view, edit, and send TIFFdocuments to others.

The aim of this second stage was to investigatehow participants used Capshare to capturedocuments. The same methodology was used as inStage 1: three in-depth interviews per participant

Table 1. Participants and their occupation.(Pseudonyms have been used for participants’ names)

Subject Occupation

Jane Office administrator in small financial services firm, responsible for activities such as distributing the post, answeringthe telephone and keeping track of the company’s correspondence.

Ewan Sub-editor of an entertainment magazine, doing jobs such as opening and organising correspondence, makingsure people get information at the right time and keeping an eye on the supplements which go in the magazine. Heworks from home three days a week, where he is also a book author.

Susan Teacher in local school. Responsible for teaching “special needs” children, producing specialised material and monitoringtheir progress.

Ken Head buyer of supermarket chain. Manages his staff who do the actual buying and maintains the contacts betweensuppliers and stores at the senior level.

Jennifer Trainer in supermarket chain, dealing with arranging training sessions and working out what material to put into newtraining sessions.

Lenny Stockbroker who takes buying requests from his clients, carries them out on the stock exchange and advises clients onthe best time to make financial investments.

Matt Management consultant who spends a lot of his days in meetings, and often works from client sites. Roger Universityresearcher who spends a lot of time interviewing people working in government agencies.

Tim Logistics manager in Hewlett Packard. Lots of work in meetings discussing new manufacturing processes, and bringingtogether plans for new products.

Sam Financial administrator working in Hewlett Packard. Manages the purchasing of equipment and chasing purchase orders.Geoff Lawyer in firm dealing with patent issues. Frequently distributes information to other people in the company, and

keeps large archives of information.

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were carried out over 1.5 weeks, based around thedocuments which they had scanned. Similarquestions to those listed in Stage 1 were askedabout each scanned document.

Together, the two stages of the study gave usfirst a view of people’s desires for document capture(using the camera), followed by their actualdocument capture behaviour (using Capshare). Inall, 66 interviews were conducted with participantsto collect the data for this study. The interviewsfor both stages were tape recorded and fullytranscribed, producing a large corpus of infor-mation about document capture scanning and itsrelation to work practice.

4. Findings: Scanning Goalsand Document Types

During the study, participants took 162 photo-graphs and carried out 98 successful scans – anaverage of 15 photos and 9 scans per participant.A first observation is the difference in thefrequency of photographs and scans. This showsthat participants indicated they wanted to capturedocuments more than they actually did capturedocuments. There are many reasons why this mightbe. One reason could well have been thatparticipants’ motivation declined over the courseof the study. Another is that Capshare was simplynot suited for the types of things that theparticipants wanted to scan in. Finally, anotherpossible reason was that scanning a document withthe Capshare and carrying out subsequent activitiesrequired more effort than just taking a photographand telling the interviewer about it later. Bylooking in more detail at the reasons whyparticipants captured documents (their goals), andthe kinds of documents they captured, these issuesbecome clearer. We will return to this markeddifference in the frequency after describing thebasic findings.

4.1. Scanning goals

One of the first findings from the data was thatscanning was a highly goal-driven activity. Forthe study participants, scanning documents wassomething which was done only if there was adefinite benefit to having the documents inelectronic form. Participants’ time was too valuableto scan documents merely to have them elec-tronically available. Instead, there had to be somework goal of which scanning was one part. So, for

example, handwritten notes would often bescanned to send to colleagues. The goal for thisactivity was not scanning itself, but rather wassending the note to a colleague. While this mayseem an obvious point, the implication is that wecannot assume that documents will consistentlybe made available electronically, unless scanningplays a part in achieving work goals.

To understand the goals which were achievedwith document scanning, we categorised thephotographs and scans by the capture goal. We useda list of categories which we developed from ourrelated work on information capture [14]. Therewere seven categories in total which we used toclassify each capture incident with both the cameraand the scanner. A quantitative categorisation ofthe data according to these goals is shown in Fig.2. It should be emphasised that with such asmall sample size, it is not possible to draw anystrong conclusions from these numbers. However,some important inferences can be drawn. Firstly,there was a wide range of different activities withinwhich document capture occurred. So, while ascanner such as Capshare may be characterised asa single-function device, it is certainly not asingle-use device. Second, the fact that the threemost frequent capture goals covered 86% ofall documents which were captured indicatessomething about the needs of these individuals.These particular participants frequently cameacross documents which they wanted to distribute,store or reuse. Furthermore, participants sawsome real advantage in doing these activitieselectronically, for reasons which we shall discuss.

In an attempt to understand these findingsbetter, we looked in more detail at each of thedifferent activities starting with the most frequentcategory first.

Fig. 2. Scans and photographed categorised by the goalbehind their capture.

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Distribute: The “distribute” category covers caseswhere documents were scanned to be distributedor sent to someone else, either a group or anindividual. This category was the goal behind 47%of the captures. Participants were enthusiastic inthe interviews about being able to scan documentsfor electronic distribution them. This wasparticularly the case with participants who spentmuch of their time receiving and redistributinginformation. For example, both Jane (officeadministrator) and Tim (logistics manager)received a lot of paper documentation through thepost which they would then need to distribute togroups of people in their organisations:

Interviewer: Was using Capshare quicker than photocopyingit and sending it out to people?

Jane: Yes, much quicker and also it means I don’t have to tramparound everywhere you know I can actually do it from here.(Jane, Office Administrator)

Tim: These are more notes from a meeting we had today. Thisis basically an action plan for setting up the returns process. Sonow I have to send that out to people. I could send that outhandwritten, as it’s all internal. I’m going to type it up in anemail … It would have been marvellous if I could have scannedit in and emailed it out. (Tim, Logistics Manager)

With electronic documents, one obvious ad-vantage is their ability to be quickly distributed.This activity can be time-consuming with paper,especially if there is a large recipient list, as onehas to photocopy and send or fax individually eachcopy of the document. With electronic mail,documents can be simply scanned and emailed,saving time and effort. The high frequency of thisactivity suggests that supporting distribution is animportant need for all scanning devices. Ourparticipants had a real need for distributing paperdocuments electronically to others that was notcurrently well met with existing technologies.

Store: This category refers to documents capturedfor medium-term storage or longer-term archiving.This includes documents which are captured andkept “just in case”, as well as documents which arestored for a specific purpose. This category wasthe second most frequent in our study. Someparticipants who maintained large collections ofdocuments were enthusiastic about keepingelectronic archives:

Ewan: I and most people who do my kind of job consumeimmense quantities of print and we tear things out ofnewspapers for filing away and thinking I would like to writesomething about that … so in that sense perhaps when in afew years time I will have on my hard disc a whole sort ofarchive of newspaper clippings that have been scanned in asopposed to sort of half a dozen folders of various sort of wedges

of yellowing news print that I never bother looking at. (Ewan,Magazine Editor)

However, other participants were less enthusiastic.There were various reasons behind this hesitancyto store documents electronically, ranging fromlegal reasons or a lack of trust in computertechnology. For example:

Interviewer: You’ve got a lot of files, do you think youcould file them on the computer, all the bits of paper on thecomputer or is it easier just have it in folders?

Jane: We’ve got to keep them on paper for legal reasons,we’ve got have it on paper, you know they don’t want it onthe computer because we don’t trust it. (Jane, Office Manager)

One recurring reason centred around the effortwhich would be involved in scanning thedocuments. Jane, who maintained a large body ofrecords, felt that it would have been cumbersometo have to scan each record compared to placing itinto the paper archive she kept. This emphasisesthat the effort of scanning to file may outweighany potential benefits. This is therefore a barrierto scanning. One relevant issue here is thatelectronic records lack the tangibility of paperrecords. In some ways this makes them harder toarrange and sort in a flexible manner. However,electronic document archives have advantages inthat they can be searched (if OCRed) and thatthey can be accessed by geographically diversegroups. For example, Roger (university researcher)collected a large archive of documents from hisinterviews with government officials. Roger oftenfound that he wanted to distribute these documentsfrom his archive with other researchers – in thiscase he needed to resort to photocopying thedocuments and putting them into the post. ToRoger, scanning these documents into an archivewould have been worthwhile, since he oftenneeded to take them out of the archive andredistribute them to others.

Reuse: This category covers documents which arecaptured in order that they can be reused in theproduction of something else (usually a document).This was third in terms of frequency. In this case,participants often wanted to take snippets fromother documents, so they could reuse them in theirown documents. One participant in particular,Susan, a teacher in a local school, found thescanner useful for scanning in diagrams which shethen included in her own documents. Thesediagrams were specially modified for special needschildren, who needed text around diagrams to besimplified, or diagrams to be enlarged. Anotherparticipant, Tim, a logistics manager, found it useful

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to scan in handwritten process diagrams, whichhe would then distribute around different groupsfor comment. Tim found that drawing thesediagrams on the computer using PowerPoint wasfairly laborious, and particularly time consuming.With Capshare, however, he found he could justsketch out the diagrams on a piece of blank paper,scan it in and include it in his word documents.

One relevant issue to the r-use of scans iswhether these documents were to be convertedinto computer text – “if they were to be OCRed”.In our study, in many of the cases where parti-cipants indicated that they wanted to OCRscans, conventional OCR software would havebeen unlikely to produce useful results. Forexample, a number of participants wanted to scanhandwritten notes, or complex tables of numbersand have this converted to text. It is unlikely thatconventional software would be able to do thiswith any level of accuracy. This suggested to usthat OCR would have had limited applicabilityto our participants.

Task management, discussion, working, readingand reflection: These four categories together werethe least frequent in our study, accounting for only15% of captures. However, they do demonstratethe wide range of activities for which people wantto capture documents:

• Task management covers situations wheredocuments are captured in order to rememberthings that you have to do, or have themorganised for future tasks. One participant,Lenny, was responsible for nearly all the captureevents in this category, as he used Capshareextensively for scanning letters and attachingthem to tasks in his diary.

• Discussion covers documents which werecaptured to have a synchronous discussionaround – documents to be used in face-to-faceinteraction. For example, one participant tooka photograph of a slide from a presentation, thathe wanted to be able to use in a group meetingwith his team, having a discussion using thecaptured slide.

• Working was where documents were capturedto be annotated as “working documents”. Thiscategory covered cases where documents aremodified in an ongoing way, and act asrepositories for information.

• Reading and reflection covers documents whichwere captured to be read later, by printing themout for reading or by reading them on-screen.

Since these activities are of low frequency itcould be argued that there was little need forparticipants to carry them out. Indeed, theinterview data suggest that participants saw verylittle need to carry out these sorts of activities inthe electronic realm. For example, one participant(Ewan, magazine editor) discussed a documentwhich kept the magazine’s important dates. Thisdocument would be distributed to magazinesection editors, and annotated as it came closerto production time. This document was thereforea “working document”, in that it was continuallybeing changed and updated. Ewan distributedphotocopies of this document as he knew thisfitted its purpose better than an electronic one:

Basically it contains a whole load of listings of dates … butyou know it would be have been easier to photocopy it. (Ewan,Magazine Editor)

Ewan explained that the documents would beannotated and posted up on office walls – andit was better to distribute this document byphotocopying it and manually handing it out. Inthis case, having the document held electronicallywould not support the incidental viewing of thedocument on office walls, and annotations andmodifications which would be made to thedocument in different magazine departments.Data such as this suggest that rather than thesekinds of activities being rare, they are insteadactivities which are not well supported byelectronic documents. Electronic documents areless than ideal for supporting discussion, andreading and reflection, when compared to paperdocuments.

Fig. 3. Document capture by type of document.

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4.2. Analysis by document type

A second aspect of document capture in which wewere interested was the type of document that wascaptured. Participants photographed and scanneda wide range of documents, from newspapers tohandwritten notes. To understand this diversity wecarried out a second categorisation of the data interms of the type of document scanned.Breaking down our data by the goal of capture gaveus an idea of the different workplace activitiesscanning was part of. However, we were alsointerested in what sorts of documents participantswanted to capture. This would be important inshaping the requirements for future scanningtechnologies. This is shown in Fig. 3. Documentswere categorised into A4 pages, handwritten notes,book pages (which includes all bound documents),newspaper and magazine articles, flipcharts andbusiness cards.

The data showed that A4 pages were the mostcommonly-scanned document type. Moreover, themajority of documents scanned were one page: 76%were one page or a section of a page; 16% were 2–3 pages; 7% were 4 pages or more. While A4documents were the most common type ofdocument captured, the type of A4 documentvaried. For example, they included résumés,application forms, legal documents, letters, faxesand handouts from meetings. Since this biastowards A4 pages existed both with the cameraand the Capshare, this suggests that it was not dueto a peculiarity of the technology but rather thatthe majority of documents participants wanted toscan were A4 pages (or the equivalent, such asletter or legal paper).

However, the data also show that there was alarge variety in the remaining 41% of documents,including book pages, handwritten notes andnewspaper articles. From the interviews, theparticipants emphasised the value they got fromscanning handwritten notes:

Matt: I realised at the end of the meeting, someone said didyou happen to know what those questions were and it was sortof ideal if I could have just photocopied the page out of thebook or emailed the page out of the book rather having to write,what I actually had to do was laboriously type it out and emailit round to all concerned which took some time. (Matt,Management Consultant)

Interviewer: Do you sometimes get it where they just want tosend handwritten notes?

Jane: Yes quite often, John quite often just writes faxes,especially if it’s to someone he knows in a company. (Jane, OfficeManager)

Participants emphasised the value of distributinghandwritten notes, in that they could avoid havingto type their notes up for emailing. However, ifparticipants were dealing with individuals outsidetheir own work group, there was more hesitancyin sending handwritten documents:

Interviewer: You said that you’d want to type it up for peopleoutside the company. What about people outside your part ofthe company but still inside the company?

Tim: It depends on the team structure. I mean, if it’s internal toa project team it can be in any format. If you’re working withpeople in a foreign language, it’s sometimes better to type it upso you can clean up the language. Yeah, so anything outsidethe department. Outside the company, I’ll make it a bit slicker.(Tim, logistics manager)

5. Scanning as an “EffortBargain”

Having covered the basic findings, we now return tothe observation that participants took almost twiceas many photographs as scans. Previously, we hadconjectured three reasons for this: first, thatparticipants’ motivation may have waned over time;second, that the materials they wanted to scan wereunsuited to the design of Capshare; and third, thatthe time and effort required to scan far outweighedthat of taking a photo. Although we have no strongsupport for the claim, it is likely that participantsmaintained motivation for the study simply by thefrequency with which we interviewed them over thecourse of the three weeks. With regard to the issue ofthe unsuitability of materials scanned, there werecertainly some kinds of documents that Capshare wasnot ideally suited for scanning (such as business cards).However, according to the analysis by document type,it was clear that the majority of materials were in factunproblematic for Capshare. For example, Capsharehas a “flipchart mode” designed to handle large piecesof paper. Further, the distribution of document typeis very similar for both photos and scans, suggestingthat document type was not the main factoringinfluencing Capshare’s use.

What seems most likely, and what was indeed clearfrom talking extensively with the study participants,was that the reason for the small number of scanswas the effort involved not only in scanning, but alsoin achieving the range of goals which we haveoutlined. In this respect, scanning was in competitionwith other more conventional processes – such asphotocopying or obtaining an original electronic file– which also achieve those goals. In this way,scanning is an effort bargain. By this we mean thatparticipants would only scan if the potential

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benefits they could gain justified the effort required.So if participants thought that they could workaround the barrier between paper and electronicdocuments, and that this would be quicker and easierthan scanning, they would do this rather than scanthe document. If the goal was editing a document,for example, then an individual might ask the authorfor an electronic copy, rather than attempt to scanthe document in, OCR it and then edit the OCR’dcopy. In this way, Capshare sometimes “failed” theeffort bargain:

Ken: Again it’s back to this “the thought goes through yourmind” and you just dismiss it almost immediately, it’s not worththe effort. (Ken, Manager)

This effort bargain exists in the use of many types oftechnology. Sharrock and Anderson, for example,discuss it with reference to the design of photocopiers[15]. It is an explicit trade-off between the use of anew type of technology, such as Capshare, and the useof existing processes. At its heart it involves aconsideration of the effort which will be involved inmeeting a goal. Two aspects of Capshare’s designreduced its ability to win this “effort bargain”. Capsharewas designed as a contact scanner. That is, it was swipedover the page making contact with the page to scanits contents. In use this meant that Capshare was verysensitive to being lifted off the page during scanning.Indeed, bumps in the page, such as paperclips, orcreases, would be enough to stop the scan, which wouldthen have to be repeated from the beginning. Thismeant that, in practice, Capshare had a high scanfailure rate for participants.

Moreover, this failure rate was increased by thedifficulty participants had in finding suitable flat surfaceareas where they could use the scanner in a hurry.Participants’ desks were often crowded and coveredwith documents. There would simply be no suitableflat surface for scanning a document in, meaning thatan area would have to be cleared before a documentcould be scanned. It could be thought that this smalladdition to the scanning activity might have little effecton scanning behaviour. However, it increased theamount of effort needed to scan, influencing the effortbargain. As the bother involved in scanning increased,a number of marginal scanning activities becamequicker and easier to do with existing papertechnologies. However, some participants were moretolerant of some of these problems such as pageclipping, because of the advantages a portable devicegave them:

This was useful because I’ve been missing college quite a lotlately so I’ve scanned in all these notes. All these collegenotes – but they don’t always capture it all. It depends on thepaper – it crops the edges of the page. When I got them back

here I printed them off and put them in my file. It savedcopying them all out or photocopying them, I just did it thereand then. It handy because you don’t have to borrow andtake things away. It’s been pretty valuable for that sort of use.(Tim, Logistics Manager)

A second aspect of Capshare’s design whichinfluenced the effort bargain can be seen if welook at how Capshare is used to reach a goal. Forexample, to send a document to a colleague withCapshare would involve a number of steps. First,one would need to scan the document, then checkthe document to see it had scanned properly,rescanning if necessary. Then the Capshare wouldhave to be attached to the PC, and the documentsent using the buttons on the PC. Finally, a newemail message would need to be created, addressedand the file attached to the email message.

Obviously, these steps take some time andcognitive effort. To the participants, this effortwould often be more than using other ways ofcompleting the task, such as putting a photocopyinto the internal mail. The configuration ofCapshare and its software on the PC producedlittle assistance in completing common tasks.This made using Capshare to reach goalsunnecessarily complex. One example from thestudy illustrates this clearly. Jane, the officemanager, found Capshare to be easier to use whenshe wanted to photocopy documents. Rather thanwalking round the building and waiting for thephotocopier to warm up, she could copy thedocument from her desk using her printer,Capshare and PC. This also had the advantageof keeping a copy of any documents that shephotocopied on her PC. However, due to thefailure rate of scanning with Capshare, and theeffort involved in completing the task, sheeventually gave up on using the Capshare andwent back to photo-copying documents:

There were times when I went to get it and then thought no Ihaven’t got time. You know that sort of thing because quiteoften since I’d maybe take three attempts to get it how I wantedit. (Jane, Office Manager)

In this way it was the small amounts of effortcaused by technical and design problems withCapshare which forced individuals to revert toconventional technologies.

6. Capshare as a Personaland Mobile Technology

A second theme which ran throughout the findingshas to do with the implications of Capshare’s smallsize and mobile design. Our data suggest two aspects

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of Capshare’s small design which affected its use,neither of which have to do with portability in aconventional sense. First, there were cleardifferences between Capshare’s use as a personaltechnology and the usage of shared infrastructurein office environments. Being a small device,Capshare did not have to be shared like photo-copiers or fax machines, avoiding allocationproblems. Secondly, Capshare’s mobility made itfit spatially better into non-mobile settings. Thus,Capshare supported “local-mobility”, in that itcould be kept on a desk, put away in a drawer whenspace was needed, or carried to a meeting room onsite. Both these findings show the non-obviousadvantages which mobility can give to a device innon-mobile settings.

6.1. Personal vs. shared technologies

To those who took part in the study, Capshareoffered a key advantage over existing parts of theoffice infrastructure since it did not have to beshared with others. Participants saw clearadvantages in not having to go across the office touse a shared device, such as an office photocopieror a fax machine, which might be in use, or taketime to set up.

Interviewer: Did you do any photocopying today?

Tim: Yeah I had some documents other people wanted.

Interviewer: Would you have wanted to do that at your desk?

Tim: Absolutely, the photocopier takes about 10 minutes towarm up. It’s two corridors over. (Tim, logistics manager)

Roger: I don’t like faxing, that’s one thing I don’t, I don’t likefax because it means I have to get up from here and walk alongthe corridor and then hang around waiting for the opportunityto use the faculty fax and then input it and I tend to put it inupside down or something. (Roger, University Researcher)

The fact that Capshare was seen as a personaldevice generated enthusiasm from participantssince they could see the value of replacing a sharedtechnology with something they could useindividually. Above we gave the example of Jane,who used Capshare instead of her office photo-copier. Other participants talked about howCapshare could save them time by replacingshared technologies:

Geoff: That’d save the walk to the photocopier. It’s all a timething really, if you can save me some time. (Geoff, Lawyer)

In our introduction we discussed the sales ofscanners as a peripheral for the PC. This market isdominated by the sales of flatbed scanners (around

90% of the market). We were interested, therefore,in how Capshare compared to these scanners. Dueto the large size, flatbed scanners were viewed asshared devices by the study participants. None ofthe participants discussed flatbed scannersas something they would personally own in anoffice environment:

Interviewer: Have you ever thought about buying a scanner?

Tim: Well… I wouldn’t have though it’s worth it. I think we’regetting one in for the department, but I wouldn’t suggest itindividually. (Tim, Logistics Manager)

This appears to have little to do with the cost offlatbed scanners (relatively low), but rather theirsize. Indeed, the size pressure on most officesis tight. The working environments of theparticipants who took part in the study were allfairly crowded. Even the smallest of flatbedscanners would take up an equivalent space to aPC – unworkable on most peoples’ desks. Theshared nature of scanners also makes themparticularly difficult to use as you have to transferscans from a shared PC to your own. This is aproblem addressed with the recent introductionof network scanners. Market research by HP alsosuggests that as few as 22% of scanners which arepurchased are used in the office for work activities,the rest being sold into the home.

The difference with Capshare, then, is not somuch that it is a portable device, but that it is apersonal device. Being personal, Capshare couldbe used to lower the effort involved in usinga shared device such as a fax machine or aphotocopier. However, to be able to make thisdistinction effectively, it was clear that the effortof using Capshare – both in terms of its scanningsuccess rate and in the ease of using scans – had tobe lower.

6.2. Micro and “local” mobility

The portable nature of Capshare also showed upin the way in which Capshare supported “localmobility”. In one of the first papers to discussmobility and technology in depth, Luff et al. [16]contrasted the conventional notion of mobility(meaning portability) with something they called“micro-mobility”. In this case, they referred tomicro-mobility as the extent to which an artefactcould be jointly viewed, referred to and interwoveninto a face-to-face conversation. This micro-mobility is something which paper documentssupport very well, but which technologicalalternatives often fail to support. So, the fact that

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a device is small and lightweight not only affectswhere such devices can be carried physically, butalso affects the ways in which the devices supportlocal aspects of the interaction with those devices.In this case, Luff et al. had in mind the ways inwhich a PC-based tablet was used in conversationalsituations. In our study, this issue did not come tothe fore since Capshare did not support this kindof “micro-mobility” in that its small screen wasunsuitable for document sharing in a conversation.Even increasing the screen size on the device wouldnot have avoided the interactional problems (suchas limited viewing angle and cumbersome design)which Luff et al. discuss.

However, this study did suggest that Capsharehad the advantage of offering support for a differentaspect of interaction in a local environment – onewhich we have tentatively named “local mobility”.Capshare’s small size allowed it to be stored easilyon a desk or in a drawer. Unlike a flatbed scannerit did not demand desk space which could not bereused when it was out of use. Added to this, thedevice was locally portable in that it could betaken to meetings on-site, or to other staff offices.For one participant this meant that the devicecould be used to scan in meeting notes immediatelyafter they had been taken. Moreover, if the devicewas routinely carried about on the local site, onecould use it to scan documents in unexpectedsituations. In one example, a participant foundhimself scanning slides in a meeting where heunexpectedly wanted copies of a few key slides. Inthis way, Capshare’s small size helped it to bettersupport activities in a fixed, limited geographic area(i.e. an office), without strictly being used as aportable “mobile” device. This local mobility wasseen as a key advantage of the device by the userswho took part in this study.

What this points to is that the advantagesof mobile devices may not come just from theirportability, but in the way that their mobilitymakes them fit better into our working andpersonal life. This may take a number of differentforms, rather than just the conventional notionof mobility as portability, ranging from howdevices can be used to better support workplaceinteraction, to how a device can fit better intocrowded office environments.

7. Design Implications

The aim of our research work was to recommendchanges to the Capshare product. However, a

number of more general design implications canbe drawn for the design of scanning devices per se,and other information appliances. The discussionof capture goals emphasises that the design oftechnology must centre around satisfying the goalsof the user. Of course, with many developingtechnologies, those goals are ill-defined, althoughour study shows how diary methodologies can beused to explore and understand what these goalsmay be.

The participants in our study scanned when itwas easier to complete their goal with an electronicas versus a paper document. In the study, the keyadvantage of electronic documents appeared to bethe ease with which one could distribute digitaldocuments to others. This took the form ofemailing documents, but it could include sharingactivities such as scanning to web pages. Thissuggests that an important feature of scanningtechnologies is that they should support thedistribution of scans in as easy a way as possible.The analysis of the type of document scanned hasa similar lesson. A4 documents accounted for 59%of what was captured. This seems to indicate thatthere may well be high value for a scanning devicewhich is suited to the scanning of single pages ofA4 paper. However, this analysis also showed thatpeople wanted to capture handwritten notes, booksand newspaper articles (together accounting for afurther 35% of the data). This implies there areadvantages to a device, like Capshare, which caneasily capture a wide range of document types.Devices that only address one type of capture maybe less successful than devices which attempt toscan a wide range of document types.

Focusing on the use of Capshare highlightedtwo other important findings. First, that the use ofdevices such as Capshare is part of an effort bargainand, second, that the small size of Capshare hadother implications for how it was used (such as thefact that it could be used as a personal device, andthat it was locally mobile in some useful ways).With regard to Capshare, the first observationabout the effort bargain had a special resonance.We recommended two design changes to lower thisbarrier. Firstly, we recommended that Capshare besold with a cradle with one button on it whichwould synchronise the Capshare with the PC. Thissimplifies the connection of Capshare to a PC.Secondly, we prototyped the assignment of actionsfor documents on the Capshare device itself. Inthis model of use the document is scanned and thenthe action (such as sending to a colleague) enteredon the device itself without having to go to the

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PC. The action is then completed when the deviceis put into its cradle. The aim of both these designrecommendations was to reduce the effort involvedin completing the scanning activity for the mostfrequent types of activities and goals that ourparticipants talked about. The cradle solutionreduced the complexity of completing a particularpart of using Capshare, whereas the ability toaddress email from the Capshare reduced thenumber of steps involved in achieving the goal.Together these lower the barriers of learning howto use Capshare and barriers to its adoption.

These observations can be carried across to thedesign of other devices. The study suggests thatlowering of the complexity of completing simpletasks can greatly increase usage. The dynamics ofthis are based around the competition these deviceshave with existing processes. Should the effort ofthe new device be more than existing processes,they will not be used. This effort barrier takes theform of the complexity of individual actions withthe device, the number of steps involved in its use,and the barriers in learning how to use the device.

However, our observations regarding thedesign of shared versus personal devices, and“locally-mobile” devices, gives encouragement tothe design of devices such as Capshare. If devicescan be better designed so that they fit intoindividuals’ personal work practices, rather thanhaving to be shared either for economic or spacereasons, then they are likely to be successful. Thisis an interesting addition to the recent interest inmobile technologies [17], in that utility of thesedevices may not come just from their mobility, butfrom the fact that their small size allows them tobecome personal technologies. With Capshare, thisopened our eyes to new markets outside that ofmobile professionals, since the small size of thedevice allowed it to fit into the static office contextas much as it enabled use on the move.

8. Conclusion

This paper has discussed a study looking at theusage and opportunities for a new type of scanningdevice, the Capshare 920, and, more generally, theopportunities for ad hoc document scanning in theoffice. The results from the study emphasised theimportance of goals in scanning activity. Whenparticipants captured documents, it was with someusage in mind. The top goals for capture weredistribution, archiving and reuse. A similarcategorisation of the documents which were

captured by document type highlighted theprominence of A4 documents. Capshare’s use by thestudy participants was part of an effort bargain.Participants would only use Capshare if theyestimated that it would save them time and effort.While this is not a new observation, it was particularlyrelevant to the design of Capshare. Two issues withCapshare – problems with getting reliable scans, andthe effort required to transfer scans to the PC –increased the effort required in using Capshare. Thislowered the device’s usefulness.

However, a number of features of Capshare’s designmade it useful to our participants, in particular, howCapshare’s mobility was useful in distinctly non-mobile settings. Since Capshare was small andportable it was used as a personal technology, ratherthan being shared. Participants saw real advantagesin this. When using shared devices, such asphotocopiers or fax machines, participants wouldhave to walk across their building, turn on and waitfor the device to initialise, and often wait until otherpeople had finished with the device. Althoughseemingly trivial, this added to the effort involved inusing shared devices. Alternatively, personal devicessuch as Capshare lower the effort involved in faxingor copying a document. Capshare’s personal naturemade it more useful.

A second finding concerned the ways in whichCapshare’s small size made it fit into conventional,non-mobile work environments better. SinceCapshare was small it could easily be stored whennot used, either on a desk or in a desk drawer. This isin contrast with conventional scanners which takeup a large amount of desk space. Moreover, Capsharewas locally portable in that it could be taken tomeetings on-site, or to other local places. This meantthat, with Capshare, the scanner could be taken tothe document to be scanned, rather than thedocument being brought to the scanner. This “localmobility” implies that the advantage of mobiledevices, such as Capshare, may not come from justtheir portability, but in the way that their mobilitymakes them fit better into our working and personallife. This may take a number of different forms, ratherthan just the conventional notion of mobility asportability. In terms of future research directions, thisinteraction between different form factors forconventional devices and their usage is a promisingone. Within our own lab we have been investigatingthis in the case of devices such as miniature webservers [18], and Swatch watches which can accessthe internet [19].

In conclusion, we present this study as anattempt to understand better the divide between

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paper and electronic documents. Rather thanassuming that documents are all availableelectronically, we have looked at how individualscross this divide with one type of scanning device,and the problems which they encountered. As theimportance of electronic documents increases, andthe prominence of electronic document managementsystems increases, we believe that how this divide ismanaged is a topic of increasing importance.

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Correspondence to: Barry A.T. Brown, Hewlett-Packard ResearchLabs, Filton Road, Stoke Gifford, Bristol BS34 8QZ, UK. Tel:+(44) 117 922 9520. Email: [email protected]

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