Understanding Sequence and Reply Relationships Within Email Conversations: a Mixed-Model Visualization
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Understanding Sequence and Reply Relationships within Email Conversations: A Mixed-Model Visualization Gina Venolia and Carman Neustaedter September 23, 2002 Revised January 13, 2003 Technical Report MSR-TR-2002-102 Microsoft Research Microsoft Corporation One Microsoft Way Redmond, WA 98052 Understanding Sequence and Reply Relationships within Email Conversations: A Mixed-Model Visualization Gina Danielle Venolia Carman Neustaedter Microsoft Research University of Calgary One Microsoft Way Department of Computer Science Redmond, WA 98052 USA Calgary, AB, T2N 1N4 Canada +1 425 703 2891 +1 403 210 9404 [email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT along with all the related messages provides better local It has been proposed that email clients could be improved if context, which can help one better understand the meaning they presented messages grouped into conversations. An of the message. Although this context is preserved to a email conversation is the tree of related messages that limited extent by current email programs when they arises from the use of the reply operation. We propose two automatically include the text of the original message when models of conversation. The first model characterizes a replying, this method breaks down when a message conversation as a chronological sequence of messages; the receives multiple replies, creating a complex, branching second as a tree based on the reply relationship. We show reply tree. Subsequent replies provide additional context how existing email clients and prior research projects but these are not captured by quoting. implicitly support each model to a greater or lesser degree Second, by making the conversation the main unit of depending on their design, but none fully supports both display, more items can be shown at the same time, models simultaneously. We present a mixed-model providing greater global context. By collecting messages visualization that simultaneously presents sequence and into conversations, sets of messages that normally would reply relationships among the messages of a conversation, have been displayed on several lines can be displayed on making both visible at a glance. We describe the integration just one line, allowing more conversations to be viewed. of the visualization into a working prototype email client. A usability study indicates that the system meets our usability Third, when conversations are presented as units in the user goals and verifies that the visualization fully conveys both interface, valuable conversation operations can be types of relationships within the messages of an email provided. For example in current systems, if five messages conversation. that are all part of the same conversation are received, the user has to perform five sets of mouse and keyboard actions Keywords to handle the messages (read, file, delete, etc.). However, if Computer-mediated communication, asynchronous the five messages are grouped together as a conversation communication, information visualization, thread, email, unit, the user needs to perform only one set of mouse and electronic mail, Usenet newsgroup, instant messaging, chat, keyboard actions. Although this may seem like a small user study, usability benefit, multiplied over a large number of email messages, INTRODUCTION the benefit may translate to a significant reduction in user The mismatch between the user interfaces for email clients effort. In addition, higher-level operations are also possible. and user needs for handling email has been documented For instance, if one starts receiving messages in a numerous times [3, 13, 26, 6]. This disparity has stimulated conversation that is not of interest, one could opt out of the proposals for a plethora of client user interface design conversation, deleting all its current and future messages. changes. One recurrent theme is that messages should be aggregated into conversations rather than appearing as In this paper, we concentrate on a visualization and user independent elements [2, 26, 12, 17, 18, 16]. A interface that supports the first of these motivations. We conversation is defined in the most general sense as a describe a design supporting the second, and don’t touch on collection of related messages (more on this later). the third. In the next sections, we describe several existing product and research user interfaces that organize email and Several plausible benefits may result from viewing similar communication modalities into conversations. We messages as conversations. First, displaying a message then describe two ways of thinking about conversations that are implicit in those designs, and observe an empty niche: Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for fully supporting both models. We then present a mixed- personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are model visualization intended to fill that niche, and its not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies surrounding user interface. Finally we describe a usability bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior study in which we examined the degree to which the specific permission and/or a fee. visualization actually fills that niche. We finish with CHI 2003, April 5–10, 2003, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, USA. Copyright 2003 ACM 1-58113-630-7/03/0004…$5.00. suggestions for future research in the area of designing user conversations to a greater or lesser extent. Virtually all interfaces to support email conversations. Usenet newsgroup clients show messages in a tree What is a Conversation? structure. Microsoft Outlook Express 6 is typical of these As mentioned above, a conversation is an aggregation of interfaces: messages are listed in one pane, and the selected related messages. The messages of a conversation are message is shown in another. Root messages (those with bound by relationships between them. Clark [1] defines null parent pointers) appear in the list pane at the top level utterances in face-to-face conversations as projects, of indentation; replies appear indented under their parent subprojects and digressions, leading to five types of message, in chronological order. As this layout is recursive, transitions (pair-wise relationships) between utterances: the result is a forest of conversation trees. next, push, pop, digress and return. Another model of the Most email clients organize messages chronologically by relationship between utterances was developed by default without regard to conversation. Some email clients, McDaniel, et al. [14]. They define a thread as “a stream of e.g. Microsoft’s Outlook XP and QualComm’s Eudora 5.1, conversation in which successive contributions continue a provide an optional means of grouping messages by topic.” In their model a contribution can be a part of conversation in a folder. More primitive clients can achieve multiple threads. Clearly there is a lot of complexity in the a similar effect by sorting on the Subject field, which often structure of face-to-face conversation. remains unchanged over a conversation. In computer-mediated communication (CMC), a simpler The bulk of the standard email views in IBM’s Lotus Notes model of relationships among messages has emerged: In r6 show a sorted list of messages typical of other email email and Usenet newsgroups, a message may either denote clients. A “Thread View” mode (somewhat hidden in the a new conversation or may be a reply to a single prior user interface) displays email messages organized much message, thus continuing a conversation. This relationship like a typical Usenet newsgroup client. is represented using a parent pointer, which is null in the These same Usenet newsgroup and email clients support former case and a reference to the prior message in the conversations in another, less-overt way. When the user latter. This leads to branching conversational trees, which initiates a reply to a message, its contents are copied to the have come to be called threads (though different from the new message. With the text editor the user may leave these use of the same term by McDaniel et al.). The command to contents unchanged, trim the parent message to select a create a new conversation is distinct in the user interface salient portion, or sprinkle replies throughout the quoted from the one to create a reply to a prior message. content. This operation, called quoting, to some extent puts Other models have been proposed for CMC. Comer and the reply into its conversational context [20]. If the quoting Peterson [2] propose that a message is related to all prior, in a series of replies upon replies is allowed to accumulate, read messages in the same conversation, leading to a it represents all the ancestor messages, i.e. the path to root directed graph over the messages. in the conversation tree. Lewis and Knowles [12] propose using statistical Prior Research information retrieval techniques, rather than two distinct Several research teams have developed visualizations and commands in the user interface, to infer the relationship user interfaces for representing email and Usenet between messages, though the result is still a conversation newsgroup conversation trees. tree. Similarly Newman [16] combines evidence from the Loom [5] provides a view of messages in a Usenet explicit parent pointer, information retrieval matching and newsgroup where each message is a dot placed on a 2D other sources to derive a corrected parent pointer. grid: the horizontal axis is time, and each row represents a In this paper we use the prevailing CMC definition of distinct author. Lines connect the dots of a message to its conversation trees. The techniques mentioned in the replies. Different conversations are connected with lines of preceding paragraph would complement the present work. different colors. A message dot can be opened into a CONVERSATION INTERFACES separate window to show the message header and contents. There have been many interfaces proposed and deployed Conversation Map [19] shows the conversations within a for viewing turn-based, tree-structured conversations.