Contact Relationship-Based Recipient Field Population

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Solution Overview

Problem

Conventional communication systems are inefficient in informing users about relationships between contacts, making it difficult to navigate and accurately populate recipient fields, especially in larger organizations, leading to frustration and delays in electronic communication.

Innovation Solution

A method that identifies an intended recipient and receives a recipient identifier to access relationship information from a contact database, determining related contacts and populating recipient fields within a graphical user interface, allowing for automatic addition of relevant recipients based on hierarchical or semantic relationships.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Productivity

If conventional systems require users to manually search contact databases using meta information, then contact information can be found, but the process becomes time-consuming and inefficient

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvespeed of populating recipient fieldVSAvoidtime spent searching for contacts

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of time

Solution Approach 1:

The system pre-processes and stores relationship information between contacts in advance, organizing contact data with hierarchical and semantic relationships before they are needed. When a user needs to populate a recipient field, the system can immediately retrieve pre-organized relationship data rather than searching from scratch, significantly reducing the time required to find relevant contacts.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #10Preliminary action

Solution Approach 2:

The patent introduces relationship information as an intermediary layer between the contact database and the user interface. This intermediary layer pre-organizes contacts based on their relationships (manager, teammate, subordinate, etc.), allowing the system to quickly suggest relevant contacts without requiring users to manually search through entire contact databases or drill through multiple menus.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #24Intermediary (Mediator)

2Adaptability or versatility

If conventional systems provide comprehensive contact databases, then all contacts are available, but navigating to find relevant recipients becomes complex and frustrating

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveavailability of contact informationVSAvoidease of navigating contact lists

Core Design Contradiction:

Adaptability or versatilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of presenting the entire contact database uniformly, the system applies local quality by providing context-specific contact suggestions based on the intended recipient. When a user selects an intended recipient, the system locally adapts the contact list to show only those contacts with relevant relationships to the intended recipient, such as manager, teammate, or subordinate, making navigation intuitive and focused.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #3Local quality

Solution Approach 2:

The patent segments the comprehensive contact database into relationship-based groups (manager, teammate, subordinate, etc.) that are dynamically presented based on the intended recipient. This segmentation transforms a overwhelming single contact list into multiple organized, context-relevant groups, making it easy for users to find the right recipient without navigating through all contacts.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

3Productivity

If conventional systems use simple reply-all functionality, then all current recipients are notified, but relevant parties outside the current conversation are missed

Engineering Contradiction:

Improveaccuracy of recipient identificationVSAvoidmissing relevant recipients

Core Design Contradiction:

ProductivityVSLoss of information

Solution Approach 1:

The system uses relationship information as feedback to continuously improve recipient suggestions. When a user selects an intended recipient, the system retrieves relationship information about that contact (manager, teammates, subordinates) and uses this feedback to suggest additional relevant recipients. This feedback loop ensures that the system learns from the organizational structure and consistently identifies the most relevant parties for each communication context.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #23Feedback

Data Source

PatentUS11836443B2Populating contact information within an electronic message based on contact relationship information

Publication Date: 2023.12.05 MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING LLC

AI summary

When composing an electronic message having at least one intended recipient, a contact manager provides contact information for one or more related recipients. The contact manager may receive an identifier associated with the intended recipient(s), which may be used to lookup and identify contact information for related recipient(s). The contact manager may access a contact database, and, using the identifier and relationship information, determine a contact for the related recipient. The contact manager may then populate the contact information for the contact in a recipient field or other compose surface.