Highlighting Message Addresses in Electronic Messaging Systems
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users of electronic messaging systems frequently send messages to unintended recipients due to the complexity of managing multiple recipients in these systems.
Innovation Solution
A graphical user interface that highlights intended message recipients by distinguishing them from unintended recipients through visual cues such as greying out or changing the appearance of graphical objects corresponding to candidate recipients not identified for the message.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If users manually select recipients from a list of candidates in electronic messaging systems, then the system can accommodate multiple recipients and message streams, but users frequently make addressing mistakes and send messages to unintended recipients
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies visual highlighting techniques where graphical objects representing intended recipients are displayed with distinctive visual cues such as highlighting, coloring, or bold formatting. This allows users to quickly distinguish intended recipients from unintended recipients among multiple candidates, thereby preventing addressing mistakes while maintaining the ability to send messages to multiple recipients.
2Ease of operation
If the graphical user interface displays all candidate recipients equally, then the interface is simple and easy to understand, but users cannot quickly verify who will receive the message
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by differentiating the visual presentation of graphical objects based on their selection status. Intended recipients are displayed with enhanced visual properties (highlighting, color changes, or bold formatting) while unintended recipients maintain their standard appearance. This allows the interface to remain simple for unintended recipients while providing quick verification for intended recipients through localized visual enhancement.
3Reliability
If users review the full list of candidate recipients to verify addressing, then addressing accuracy can be improved, but the process becomes time-consuming and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by providing visual highlighting of intended recipients immediately as they are selected or identified, rather than requiring a separate review step. This real-time visual feedback allows users to verify addressing accuracy continuously during the composition process, eliminating the need for time-consuming post-selection verification while maintaining high addressing accuracy.
Data Source
AI summary
In some implementations, a graphical user interface of an electronic messaging system can highlight addressees of a message in a group of candidate message recipients. For example, the graphical user interface can present graphical objects corresponding to candidate message recipients. When a user composes a message, the user can provide input identifying a recipient of the message. In response to the user input identifying the recipient of the message, the graphical user interface can highlight a graphical object corresponding to the identified recipient. In some implementations, the graphical user interface can subdue (e.g., grey out) graphical objects corresponding to candidate message recipients that are not identified in the message in order to highlight the identified recipient objects. In some implementations, a message recipient can be an individual contact (e.g., person). In some implementations, a message recipient can be a message stream.