Undo Mechanism for Delayed Social Media Content Submission
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users face challenges in easily undoing or deleting content posted to social networking services from external services, as once posted, it becomes visible to others and can be difficult to retract without navigating back to the social networking service.
Innovation Solution
Implementing an undo functionality that allows users to delay the submission of content to a social networking service, presenting it as already posted within the service's context, enabling users to change their minds and remove it without it ever being visible to others, through mechanisms like delayed transmission and external service interfaces.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If content is immediately submitted to social networking service, then submission speed is improved, but user control and ability to undo submission deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a delay mechanism where content submission to the social networking service is postponed for a predetermined period after user authorization. During this delay window, the user can cancel the submission if changed their mind. This preliminary action allows the system to prepare the submission while giving the user an opportunity to reconsider, thus maintaining both speed and user control.
2Productivity
If content is immediately visible in social network context, then information exchange efficiency is improved, but risk of unintended sharing increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system presents content as if it were already posted in the user's social network context during the delay period, allowing the user to review and potentially cancel before actual submission. This preliminary presentation enables efficient information exchange preparation while eliminating the risk of unintended sharing, as content only becomes publicly visible after the user confirms by not canceling.
3Ease of operation
If undo functionality is implemented, then user control is improved, but system complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The undo functionality is implemented through a simple delay mechanism with a cancellation option presented to the user during the delay window. This approach provides robust user control without requiring complex rollback or recovery systems, as the content never actually submits to the social networking service during the delay period if canceled.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates a local copy or representation of the content in the user interface during the delay period, allowing the user to see and potentially cancel the submission without actually transmitting the content to the social networking service. This copying approach simplifies the undo mechanism compared to implementing full rollback capabilities.
Data Source
AI summary
A user can author content, and submit such content to be posted within a social networking context, from an external service such that the user can undo the posting of such content without such content ever having been posted in the social networking context. Additionally, once such user-authored content is posted in the social networking context, the user is provided with a single action that can remove all relevant manifestations of such content. The submission of user-authored content, to a social networking service, from an external service is delayed while, simultaneously, such external service presents the user with an interface indicating that such user-authored content has already been submitted to the social networking service and posted thereon. Should the user select to undo the posting of such content prior to the expiration of the delay, the submission can simply never be performed.