21 Ways to Visualize and Explore Your Email Inbox
Email has grown to be a huge part of our lives and is very much commonplace. We can connect with others in just a few clicks. With all the email sent per day, how can we understand these connections? How can we visualize the type of email we've been sending? Can we tell a story somehow with the thousands of emails we've sent, received, and deleted?
These 21 email visualizations investigate. I've split them up into six categories - exploratory, analytic, mapping, metaphor, networks, and abstract.
Exploratory
We almost always think of email in list-form - read, unread, spam - but here are a group of visualizations that show you email differently and encourage users to explore their inbox.
Mountain
It's the mountain of email by Fernanda Viegas from the IBM group.
Enron Explorer
I posted about this in 6 Influential Datasets that Changed the Way We Think. When did Enron start going under?
Themail
Themail splits your emails into keywords and phrases.
Contrasting Portraits
Analytic
How can we look at email from a quantitative perspective?
Rhythms of Relationships
Dynamic Coordinated Email
Mapping
Email mysteriously floats around in some network, but here are some maps that try to attach location to our messages.
Small World Email Networks
Spam Map
Of course there's going to be tons of Google Maps mashups. I'll just put this one - once you've seen one, you've seen them all.
ForwardTrack
Created by Eyebeam in collaboration with Stamen.
Using Metaphor
Instead of messages, we can think of email with metaphors. Oftentimes, metaphors make complex ideas easier to understand.
Mail Garden
Each plant is an email.
Spam Plants
Spam isn't just the best canned meat ever, it's also now a plant.
Anymails
It's like animals. Emails are animals that cluster in herds.
3D Mailbox
In attempt to make email fun, 3D Mailbox places it in a virtual world.
Forming Networks
We'll send an email and make a connection. These visualizations show those virtual connections.
My Map
BuddyGraph
Thread Arcs
Making Connections
Abstract
Returning to theme of data-driven art, here are some email-driven pieces and artworks. They're not graphs and charts and not really anything concrete. Instead, they look for the inner beauty in something that feels so mechanical.
Spam Recyler
SpamPaint
Spam Architecture
Texone Spam
Phew, that was a lot, and yet, I'm 100% sure that I missed some, so if you know of any that aren't listed, leave a link in the comments below.
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FlowingData explores how statisticians, designers, computer scientists, and others are using data to understand more about ourselves and our surroundings.
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