Email Recipient Highlighting via Social Network Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
In email messages with multiple recipients, it is difficult for the recipient to identify and distinguish relevant co-recipients from their social network, as the large recipient lists in 'To' and 'Cc' headers become cumbersome to digest.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that highlights recipients in an email message who are part of the user's social network by comparing the user's social network list with the email message recipients, using computer hardware or software, and providing additional highlighting for recipients who have read the message, with options for user control and adaptation based on context and threshold settings.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If the recipient list in email headers is displayed in full detail, then complete information about all recipients is provided, but the header becomes larger and harder to digest, making it difficult to find specific people
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the recipient list into two distinct visual groups: highlighted recipients (those in the user's social network) and non-highlighted recipients. This segmentation allows the header to maintain completeness while improving readability through visual differentiation, enabling users to quickly locate specific people without being overwhelmed by the full list
Solution Approach 2:
The patent applies visual highlighting (color changes) to recipients who are part of the user's social network. This visual cue system allows users to instantly identify relevant recipients without having to scan the entire header, thereby maintaining information completeness while significantly improving ease of reading and navigation
2Ease of operation
If the email header displays all recipients without highlighting, then no visual processing is required, but users must manually scan through large recipient lists to find specific people, making it time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
The patent performs preliminary action by automatically comparing the recipient list against the user's social network data before displaying the email header. This pre-processing highlights relevant recipients in advance, so when the user views the email, they can immediately identify people they know without having to manually scan or search through the entire recipient list, thereby reducing the time required to find specific recipients
Data Source
AI summary
A method and system for highlighting email recipients according to a user's social network are provided. The method includes receiving an email message at a user's email client, the email message having multiple recipients, one of the recipients being the user. The method further includes obtaining a social network list for the user and comparing the social network list for the user with the email message recipients and highlighting recipients in the email message who are also in the social network list. The social network list for a user may be obtained by different methods including using the user's contact resources, or using an aggregating social network system including weighting relationships between contacts.