HOW TIDY IS YOUR DESKTOP? A FIELD STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGIES

Do most office workers customize the absolute or relative locations of icons on their computer desktops in an effort to enhance personal efficiency? Eighty-three employees in a variety of office settings allowed us to document the layout of their desktops and then took part in semi-structured interviews. Just under half of our participants (49%) repositioned their icons from the default locations generated by their computers ’ operating systems. Only 9 % reported grouping icons by function. When the strategies of workers who considered their desktops organized were compared to those who did not, the most notable (and only reliable) distinction was the lower absolute number of icons on the “organized ” desktops. Our participants ’ mostly passive approach to customization may have implications for the use of adaptive versus adaptable interfaces, and it demonstrates the need for decisional guidance tools to support even simple customization. The matching of interface characteristics to the needs and preferences of individual users, the “personalization ” of software, has been advocated for a wide variety of reason