When working with others in the office, most know it is better to approach a colleague who is relaxed and drinking a cup of coffee versus a frazzled co-worker buried under a pile of paperwork.

Unfortunately, e-mail doesn’t offer users the same social cues—until now.

Eric Gilbert, an assistant professor of computing at Georgia Institute of Technology, has developed software called Courteous.ly, a service that shows current user e-mail loads in real time. 

“I think we’re really good at the etiquette part when we have the cues that allow us to be polite,” says Gilbert, a faculty member in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing. “Courteous.ly helps manage expectations and lets people choose to send mail when it’s best for you.”

Available for download, Courteous.ly currently works with Google-based e-mail, such as Gmail, which is used by 160 million people worldwide. Roughly 3 million businesses also use Google-hosted mail. Signing up for Courteous.ly is as easy as entering your e-mail address and verifying a few links.

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