Shared Voicemail Message Status Segmentation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional voicemail systems fail to accurately manage shared voicemail messages among multiple users, leading to issues where a message marked as 'read' by one user may not be accessible to its intended recipient, causing confusion and missed notifications.
Innovation Solution
A shared voicemail system with a computer processor that stores and manages voice messages for multiple users, allowing users to access and notify others of messages intended for specific recipients, with features like 'for attention of' status indicators and message expiration, ensuring that intended recipients are prompted to access messages even if previously accessed by others.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a voicemail message is marked as 'read' after being accessed by any user, then the system simplifies message status tracking, but the intended recipient may not be notified to access the message
Solution Approach 1:
The message status is segmented into multiple dimensions: overall read status (whether any user has accessed it) and intended recipient notification status (whether the specific recipient has been notified). This allows the system to track both the simplification benefit and the delivery assurance requirement independently.
Solution Approach 2:
A notification mechanism acts as an intermediary between the message storage system and the intended recipient. When a message is accessed by any user, the system checks whether the intended recipient has been notified, and if not, sends a notification (e.g., SMS, email, or in-app notification) to ensure they are aware of the message.
2Ease of operation
If a shared voicemail system allows any user to access any message, then message accessibility is improved, but message privacy and accuracy for intended recipients deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
Different users have different access rights and notification priorities for different messages. The system maintains universal accessibility (any user can access any message) while adding local quality controls through targeted notifications to intended recipients, preserving message intent information.
Solution Approach 2:
The system preliminarily identifies the intended recipient of each voicemail message and prepares targeted notifications in advance. When a message is accessed by any user, the system checks whether the preliminary identified recipient has been notified, and if not, sends a notification before the recipient might otherwise miss the message.
3Reliability
If the system sends notifications to all users when a new message is received, then no user misses any message, but notification noise and user confusion increases
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of sending uniform notifications to all users, the system applies local quality by sending targeted notifications only to the intended recipient of each message. This reduces notification noise for users who don't need to know about every message while maintaining reliable notification for the specific user who should act on it.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2a~2c
Figure 2d~2f
AI summary
A shared voicemail system and method of operation in which the system comprises a computer processor configured in use to store a voice message received from a third party; in which the stored voice message is accessible to each user of a plurality of users of the shared voicemail system. The computer processor also configured in use to provide a copy of the stored message to a first user of the plurality of users, receive an indication from the first user that the message is intended to be accessed by a second user of the plurality of users and to provide a notification prompting the second user to access the message. In an embodiment, the voice message received from the third party is part of a call redirected to the shared voicemail system from a phone line shared by the plurality of users.