Many offices contain so-called "clutter" (Kirsh, 2001; Malone, 1983). In my artifact submission, "clutter" takes the form of papers scattered throughout horizontal surfaces in an office. My submission consists of: 1) Real "clutter" transplanted from an office environment and 2) a diagrammatic illustration that models how the "clutter" serves as a information organization system that enables the "organization" of both vague and well defined categories. I propose that piles are theme based ("labeled") categories containing document-objects that fall along perceptually similar dimensions. Like a vague sketch, the relationships of document-objects between piles express relationships that do not easily fall within existing piles (easily categorized themes). Acknowledgments - Thanks for the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program and the University of Toronto for sponsoring parts of presentation.
