A Scale for Measuring Email Overload

We present an eight-point scale of email overload to assess users’ feelings of email overload. Based on previous research, we designed a survey to examine email overload. 292 subjects filled out the survey as part of a software deployment. Eight of our questions worked together well as a scale, which can be used to evaluate the effectiveness of future email systems, as well as to explore current behavior. We show that the scale links well to user behavior.