faMailiar & Intimacy-Based Email Visualization

Email has developed into one of the most extensively used computer applications. Email interfaces, on the other hand, have gone through very few transformations since their inception, and as the growing volumes of email data accumulate in users´ email boxes, these interfaces fail to provide effective message handling and browsing support. Saved email messages provide not only a vast record of one´s electronic past, but also a potential source of valuable insights into the structure and dynamics of one´s social network. In this paper, we present faMailiar, a novel email visualization that draws upon email´s inherently personal character by using intimacy as a key visualization parameter. The program presents a visualization of email use over time. faMailiar facilitates navigation through large email collections, enabling the user to discover communication rhythms and patterns.