  We carried out a qualitative study to identify the "missing pieces" in
current computing devices and technologies that are preventing people from
eliminating paper from their lives.
  Most of the existing literature has looked into the work practices of
businesses, while a few have researched how high school and college students
and teaching assistants at universities work with paper. We were specifically
interested in analysing paper use for people in the research side of academia,
and seeing how our results compare to existing work. We recruited and
interviewed participants from academia to understand what kind of tasks they
use paper for, what kind of tasks they use computing devices for and what
motivates them to use these two media.
  We found that, despite having access to at least one personal computing
device, the participants preferred to work with paper in many situations. This
appears to be attributed to certain intrinsic qualities that paper has, such as
open format, easy navigation, readability, and the aff?ordances these qualities
provide. In order to eventually replace paper with devices, designers of new
technology will have to successfully emulate these qualities.
