  Digital Assistants (DAs) can support workers in the workplace and beyond.
However, target user needs are not fully understood, and the functions that
workers would ideally want a DA to support require further study. A richer
understanding of worker needs could help inform the design of future DAs. We
investigate user needs of future workplace DAs using data from a user study of
40 workers over a four-week period. Our qualitative analysis confirms existing
research and generates new insight on the role of DAs in managing people's
time, tasks, and information. Placing these insights in relation to
quantitative analysis of self-reported task data, we highlight how different
occupation roles require DAs to take varied approaches to these domains and the
effect of task characteristics on the imagined features. Our findings have
implications for the design of future DAs in work settings, and we offer some
recommendations for reduction to practice.
