Using Intimacy, Chronology and Zooming to Visualize Rhythms in Email Experience

Experiences of intimacy and connectedness through social networks are vital to human sense of well-being. We live in an electronic habitat. Electronic mail functions as a medium of interpersonal exchange. As it accumulates, email data becomes more than a collection of reminders. It is a diary we didn’t know we were keeping, and a potential source of valuable insight into the structure and dynamics of one's social network. Current interfaces do little to help users see patterns of social interaction within email data. We introduce a multiscale email interface that utilizes computed intimacy measures and chronology as parameters for information visualization. Rhythms of intimacy in email experience are made visible as patterns of color and shapes in a zoomable chronological grid. Qualitative user experience data indicates that such an email visualization can provide striking insights into the experience of social connectedness over time. These insights potentially enable users to better manage how they invest time and energy into personal and work relationships, and thus to improve overall sense of well-being. Author Keywords Email, email visualization, email interface, intimacy