Ezra's Bookshelf

The Myth of the Paperless Office

by Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H. R. Harper · 246 pages · ~4.5 hrs

Business & ManagementScience & Technology

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Abigail J. Sellen and Richard H.R. Harper investigate why paper persists in offices despite decades of predictions that digital technology would render it obsolete. Drawing on detailed studies of how people actually work, they show that paper possesses affordances, qualities that make it suitable for certain tasks, that digital devices do not easily replicate. Paper allows simultaneous viewing of multiple documents, easy annotation, flexible spatial arrangement, and tangible interaction that supports collaboration and cognition. The authors, researchers at Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, bring both academic rigor and practical experience to analyzing why technological predictions fail. They trace the history of paperless office predictions, showing how each generation of technology was expected to eliminate paper and did not. The book examines specific work practices, following how professionals use paper in their daily tasks and what functions it serves beyond information storage. Sellen and Harper argue that understanding paper's persistence requires attention to the nature of work itself, not just the capabilities of competing technologies. They propose design principles for digital tools that might better support the activities paper currently serves. The book remains relevant as digital transformation continues advancing while paper stubbornly persists in workplaces, remote work, and hybrid arrangements.

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