Patent Publication Number: US-2007120856-A1

Title: Method and system for organizing content on a time axis

Description:
The present invention relates to methods and systems for managing and organizing content, and more particularly, to a method and system for organizing content on a time related axis by means of a spiral to facilitate computer-mediated communications.  
      As the members of family grow up and increasingly become distributed in time and place, for example, due to a child moving away for educational or work purposes, the need for the family to be able to effectively communicate becomes very important. When time of distance limits the frequency of face-to-face meetings, people must rely on mediated communication to maintain and strengthen their relationships.  
      In addition to traditional communication tools such as the telephone, letters, and postcards, new technologies have provided people with a variety of media to bridge geographical distances. Computer-mediated communication tools, such as electronic mail and Instant Messaging, have quickly gained popularity and are now widely used. Research, however, has indicated that despite the availability of all these different communication tools, there is still a great need to enhance the communication between family members who live apart. For example, family members and friends need to organize and access the communications between one another, including media in the form of documents, pictures, graphics, audio and video recordings.  
      A number of Content Management Systems are available that list content in a text format according to bibliographic information, such as title, author, and creation date. In addition, there are systems that organize content according to metadata, including thumbnail images arranged in a grid, wherein each thumbnail image represents a picture or segment of video. While these systems provide a mechanism for organizing content, they do not convey enough information in a format that fosters the quick and accurate retrieval of the desired content and do not provide a friendly, easy-to-use mechanism for replying to family communications. A need therefore exists for a method and system for organizing content on a time axis.  
      Generally, a method and system are disclosed for organizing content on a spiral time axis. Content is organized on the spiral axis, for example, based on a creation, reception or modification time of the corresponding content. The disclosed method and system enables users to communicate with one other in an efficient and personally fulfilling manner through the use of computer-mediated communications.  
      In one variation, more recent content is positioned towards the outside of the spiral while older content is position towards the inside of the spiral. Furthermore, properties of the content representation, including size and color coding, can optionally be specified to convey additional information about the content. The method and system also provides an efficient means for responding to communications from other friends and family members. 
    
    
      A more complete understanding of the present invention, as well as further features and advantages of the present invention, will be obtained by reference to the following detailed description and drawings.  
       FIG. 1  illustrates a spiral representation of content that incorporates features of the present invention;  
       FIG. 2  is a full screen view of a selected content item of  FIG. 1 ;  
       FIG. 3  illustrates the network environment in which the present invention operates;  
       FIG. 4  is a schematic block diagram of the content presentation client of the present invention;  
       FIG. 5  is a flowchart describing an exemplary implementation of the system process of the content presentation client of  FIG. 4 ; and  
       FIG. 6  is a flowchart describing an exemplary implementation of the spiral presentation process of the content presentation client of  FIG. 4 . 
    
    
      The computer-mediated communications of the present invention utilizes a postcard as a metaphor for providing efficient, but personal communication between family members of a household. A postcard allows users to share concrete visual cues of daily events and provides a personal touch that is meaningful to the receiver. A postcard provides a means for sharing concrete visual cues (pictures) with the possibility to add short handwritten notes. In addition, a post card is seen as a meaningful way to communicate when compared to other current mediums. In consequence, if a mobile user wishes to communicate with another family member or friend, the information captured should consist of a picture and a handwritten note. On the receiving side, the user needs to have a friendly, comfortable mechanism for organizing and viewing content sent by a multitude of friends and family.  
       FIG. 1  illustrates a spiral time line  100  for presenting content that incorporates features of the present invention. An axis  105  in the form of a spiral is used to present icons  130 - 1  through  130 -N representing one or more content items, such as messages or documents, in a particular order. In this example, the icons at the center of the spiral  105  represent messages with the earliest creation times and each successive icon on the spiral represents the messages with the next latest creation date. In addition, since the messages with the most recent creation date are generally most relevant, the size of the icons can be inversely proportional to the amount of time since the message&#39;s creation time.  
      The three-dimensional effect created by the spiral and size variations aid the viewer in focusing on the most recent content items, such as pictures or messages, while still being able to view older content. The time-based visualization without a fixed scale saves space and provides for scalability while giving smooth transitions on a continuous timeline.  
      The spiral axis  105  may also be separated into segments, such as the segment  107 , wherein each segment  107  represents a specific range of the parameter used to organize the messages, such as time. For example, spiral  105  can be segmented according to time periods  107 , wherein each segment  107  represents one day. It should be noted that the segmentation of the spiral  105  may be completed in either a linear fashion (each segment represents the same period of time) or non-linear (each segment represents a different period of time). In addition, the length of the segment  107  can be chosen to be proportional to the amount of time represented by the segment  107 .  
      In one alternative embodiment, a zoom feature is also provided to enable a user to zoom in on a particular area or segment  107  of the spiral  105  and view that portion of the spiral  105  at a higher resolution. In cases where the number of messages for a particular segment  107  is too high to display an icon  130  for each piece of message, the zoom feature will also allow the user to view icons not visible in the normal view.  
      According to one aspect of the invention, a spiral  105  gives a three dimensional effect to combine a detailed view (present pictures) with a compressed view (cues to past and future pictures). This avoids an overload of information while presenting as much information as possible. Basically, the three related time frames represented in the spiral allow a user to focus the attention on a limited set of N visible pictures (such as six in the exemplary embodiment) but at the same time give an overview of what there is after and before that frame. Two arrows  146 ,  148  (one on each extreme of the spiral) allow stepping between the three time frames by group of six pictures.  
      According to another aspect of the invention, the size of a picture serves as a visual cue for its recency to help the visualization of time relation between the visible pictures. In addition, in order to support scalability (different frequencies of use), there is no fixed time frame predefined, e.g., a week view or a day view. Instead, the use of dynamic date separators focuses the display on the pictures available rather than on a specific time frame. It also provides a date relation between pictures and allows users to unevenly step to different time frames (other than by a group of six). This makes the visualization more flexible, avoids empty spaces and provides a continuous timeline with smooth transitions.  
      In various implementations, a number of awareness representations can be included to augment the visualization:  
      For example, to link the exchanged information (such as pictures) with the sender and receiver, a color code and two different spaces (shared  110  and personal  120 ) can be used. The color code used on the borders of the user icons  110 ,  120  identifies the sender of a picture and gives an awareness of her/his activity. The shared and personal spaces  110 ,  120  provide cues of who is the receiver of the pictures displayed.  
      In addition to the information given by the user icons  110 ,  120 , reachability information  151 ,  152 ,  153  is provided to show by which means users are currently reachable for communication. In one implementation, a reachability status (available or unavailable) is provided to indicate the corresponding user&#39;s reachability at three exemplary types of communication: instant messaging  151 , telephone at home  152 , and mobile phone  153 . In other embodiments, this information is automatically captured and presence information is provided in other ways, such as status (online, away, busy or offline) and location.  
      Finally, a slideshow mode can optionally be provided as a way to explicitly change from an active mode to a pre-attentive background mode.  
      Graphical User Interface  
      The exemplary graphical user interface presents three types of views:  
      1. A spiral view (see  FIG. 1 ) serves as a passive or active display for the user to see and interact with the information captured. The information displayed consists of content, such as pictures or drawings and text notes made on, for instance, a mobile device.  
      2. A full screen view (see  FIG. 2 ) provides a zoomed view of a selected content item, such as a picture or drawing, along with exemplary options to reply or to display the attached text note if one exists.  
      3. A slide show view is a passive display that shows a sequence of content that are currently contained in the spiral.  
      In both the spiral and slide show view, an icon can appear whenever a new picture has been received.  
      In one exemplary implementation, two classes of users, such as members of a host household and a guest household, are created to control the interaction between the different households from a graphic point of view. The host household represents a family that owns a homebound (client) device, while the guest household represents a family that the host household wants to communicate with. For example, if household A and household B are using the system, house A is the host household when accessing the system from house A&#39;s device; house A is the guest household when accessing the system from house B&#39;s device.  
     Spiral View  
      In the exemplary spiral view shown in  FIG. 1 , a user can check pictures in a shared space or in a personal space. The exemplary system displays by default the shared space of the household where all messages that have been sent to the members of that family are shown. After a user presses her/his own user icon  110 ,  120 , the system changes the content of the spiral to show the messages that have been sent to that particular user only. The spiral interface  100  allows the user to browse backwards and forwards (time-based navigation) in groups of N pictures at a time displayed in the spiral representation. The user can also enlarge a picture to a full view screen ( FIG. 2 ). An additional feature of the spiral interface  100  allows a user to activate a “to-tell” list by pressing on the picture of any of the guest members. A to-tell list displays only those messages that have not yet been responded to.  
      As shown in  FIG. 1 , the spiral view  100  contains three interactive areas that convey different information to the user: the spiral  105  for displaying the content, the host area  110  to interact with information of the owner of the device, and the guest area  120  to interact with the other household.  
      Spiral  105   
      In the spiral  105 , the user finds several elements that provide a complete view of the messages that have been sent. The spiral is divided into three areas of interaction: the beginning part (lower left part of the spiral  105 ) where a set of N colored squares are displayed as a cue of later messages in relation to the focus area (central part of the spiral  105 ), the focus area where the current N messages are presented in different size based on the creation or reception time, and the end part where another set of N colored squares serve as cue of earlier messages. Both ends are useful while browsing to give an idea of how full the system is.  
      The spiral  105  offers two ways for browsing. One is by using the arrows  146 ,  148  located at each end of the spiral  105  (a first arrow  148  means ‘future’ and a second arrow  146  means ‘past’) which the user can use to browse previous or later messages relative to the six messages in the focus area. This type of browsing is done by groups of N messages/pictures. A second way of browsing is by using the dividers to separate messages that belong to different days. Touching a divider brings the message that follows that divider to be the first message in the focus area, thus updating the time frame of the focus area and changing the content of the spiral.  
      Host Household  105   
      Pictures placed in the upper right area of the screen represent the host members  110 . In this area, the owners of the device can identify themselves by pressing on her/his user icon  110 -n to go to their personal area.  FIG. 2  shows feedback indicating that a given user is logged in. In this area, users can activate a filter to display a to-tell list. Users can also check and set their own reachability information by pressing the reachability icon  151 ,  152 ,  153  next to her/his user icon  110 -n. The reachability information tells other users which modes of communication can be used to contact the individual and which modes are the best modes for this purpose.  
      Guest Household  120   
      Pictures placed in the lower right corner of the screen represent the guest members  120 . In the personal area, the logged in user can activate a to-tell list by pressing on the user icon  120  of a guest user. Also, in both the shared and personal spaces, the user can display the reachability information of a guest member. To accomplish this, the icon next to the picture of that user has to be pressed. In the spiral view  100  ( FIG. 1 ), an icon  150  activates the slideshow mode and an icon  160  gives feedback when a new message arrives.  
      Full Screen View  
       FIG. 2  is a full screen view  200  of a selected content item of  FIG. 1 .  
      In the full screen view  200 , senders can see a reply attached to a sent message. This is generally done only in the personal area and when a filter (to tell-list) is activated. In addition, receivers can see attached text or can reply with a drawing or handwritten note to that message.  
      A colored-border can display the message selected in the spiral. As shown in  FIG. 2 , the exemplary full screen view  200  provides a reply function  240 , a text function  230  and a return function  220 . The text icon  230  displays the text if the sender has sent it along with the picture. The return icon  220  brings back the spiral view  100 . The reply icon  240  has two functions depending on whether the receiver or sender is viewing the content. For receivers, the reply icon  240  allows a user to draw a short note to send as a response to the sender; for senders, the reply icon  240  displays the reply if one exists.  
       FIG. 3  illustrates a network environment  300  in which the present invention operates. As is illustrated in  FIG. 3 , the network environment  300  includes a client  310 , presence server  320 , and e-mail server  330 . In this manner, the client  310 , discussed further below in conjunction with  FIG. 4 , can interact with the an e-mail server  330  to present content to a user  315  using a spiral interface  100  in accordance with the present invention.  
      The client  310  provides a graphical user interface for displaying the spiral-based content management system of the present invention and for executing commands requested by a user. The presence server  320  maintains a database regarding the current status of users in the system, including the status of the user of the client  310 , in a known manner. The e-mail server  330  receives, transmits, and manages e-mail messages from a number of host family members  110 - 1  through  10 -N and guest family members  120 - 1  through  120 -N (collectively referred to as family members  110  and family members  120 , respectively), including the user  315  of client  310 . The e-mail server  330  processes e-mail messages consisting of media in the form of text, documents, pictures, graphics, audio and video recordings.  
      The presence server  320  server plays the role of the server and a Java API Client plays the role of the desktop client. The presence server  320  may be embodied as a Mobile Presence Platform (MPP) component of a Mobile Presence Application (MPA), which provides all the necessary communication services. Communities and community members are the main concepts supported by presence server  320 . It also provides services in order to use the server as a standard presence and instant messaging (IM) platform.  
      The implementation consists of a Java API for a desktop client in order to connect the household device with the server. The Java API listens to all the services that the presence server  320  provides and presents them in terms of the graphic interface. The Java API also handles the user interaction and sends the right requests to the servers  320  and  330 .  
      The Java API Client performs the following functions:  
      1. Show messages in shared and personal areas  120 ,  110 . This provides a way to access personal areas where no explicit log in action should be required. The main implication is that privacy protection of family members will rely on social control.  
      2. Provide three modes of visualization: spiral, full screen and slideshow mode. This works as an easy and smooth transition between detailed and overview information, but implies some restriction with regards to scalability and personalization (only four members per family group, only two families, and the color-map is predefined).  
      3. Provide feedback in the full screen mode if the message has text or a reply attached. Display that text or reply when the user asks for it.  
      4. Provide a way to respond to a message by writing a short text or creating a drawing. The sender of the message in his homebound device can only see the reply of that message. This functionality provides a simple solution to support two-way communication.  
      5. Provide a way to check the reachability information of a user.  
      6. Provide a way to change the reachability information of the logged on user.  
      The mobile client  340  sends messages capturing concrete cues of daily events (pictures or handwritten notes) to one or more family members of the other household. No notification or presence information is received from the other side (household). To simplify the implementation of the client, an off-the-shelf e-mail client application for a mobile phone may be used (thus only an e-mail interface is needed to communicate to a number of POP accounts to the MPA server). Thus, the graphic interaction with the mobile phone is not integrated as part of the GUI of the homebound device. It is basically a set of steps to compose a normal e-mail message.  
      Generally, the tasks supported by the presence server  320  are:  
      1. Notification when new messages arrive.  
      2. Retrieve the collection of messages that belong to a specific community.  
      3. Retrieve reachability information of users.  
      4. Change personal reachability information.  
      5. Attach a reply to a message and retrieve it when is requested.  
      The client  310  is discussed further below in conjunction with  FIG. 4 . Generally, the functions supported by the client  310  are:  
      1. Insert pictures sent by the mobile device  340  into the spiral  105 .  
      2. Update the spiral  105  according to the current set up of the user (shared or personal space, to-tell list, browsing backwards and forwards).  
      3. Provide a slideshow mode with the current pictures shown in the spiral.  
      4. Provide a full screen mode to maximize a selected picture.  
      5. Provide a reply from homebound device to homebound device to respond to the selected picture.  
      6. Provide an option to manually set the reachability information of a user and an option to display personal or other user&#39;s reachability information.  
      7. Provide visual feedback indicating the current status of the system (what is active) and when a new picture is inserted.  
      8. Provide visual representations of time relations between pictures, relations between picture and sender and cues of how busy the system is.  
       FIG. 4  is a schematic block diagram of the client  310  of  FIG. 3 . As is known in the art, the methods and apparatus discussed herein may be distributed as an article of manufacture that itself comprises a computer-readable medium having computer-readable code means embodied thereon. The computer-readable program code means is operable, in conjunction with a computer system such as central processing unit  401 , to carry out all or some of the steps to perform the methods or create the apparatuses discussed herein. The computer-readable medium may be a recordable medium (e.g., floppy disks, hard drives, compact disks, or memory cards) or may be a transmission medium (e.g., a network comprising fiber-optics, the world-wide web, cables, or a wireless channel using time-division multiple access, code-division multiple access, or other radio-frequency channel). Any medium known or developed that can store information suitable for use with a computer system may be used. The computer-readable code means is any mechanism for allowing a computer to read instructions and data, such as magnetic variations on a magnetic medium or height variations on the surface of a compact disk.  
      Memory  402  will configure the processor  401  to implement the methods, steps, and functions disclosed herein. The memory  402  could be distributed or local and the processor  401  could be distributed or singular. The memory  402  could be implemented as an electrical, magnetic or optical memory, or any combination of these or other types of storage devices. The term “memory” should be construed broadly enough to encompass any information able to be read from or written to an address in the addressable space accessed by processor  401 .  
      As shown in  FIG. 4 , the memory includes content and message data  403 , a system process  500  and a spiral presentation process  600 . The content and message database stores the content, such as messages in the exemplary embodiment, that are presented to the user in the spiral interface  100 . The content and message data  403  provides access to the content for each user, which may be stored locally or remotely (or a combination thereof), as would be apparent to a person of ordinary skill in the art. When the content is stored remotely, such as an on email server  330 , the content and message data  403  would include, for example, data structures for the dynamic management of the email messages, including account information.  
       FIGS. 5 and 6  are flowcharts illustrating the processes executed by the client  310 . The client  310  executes system process  500  and, initially, executes the spiral presentation process  600 , as discussed further below in conjunction with  FIG. 6 , during step  510  to display the communications received by the family members  110 . The system process  500  then waits during step  520  for a command to be entered by the user  315 .  
      During step  520 , the system process  500  waits for the user  315  to enter a command. If the user wishes to view the messages created earlier then those displayed on the spiral  105 , then the user  315  presses on the arrow  146 ; if the user wishes to view the messages created later then those displayed on the spiral  105 , then the user  315  presses on the arrow  148 . The process  500  then executes either step  525  or step  530 , respectively. If step  525  is executed, the process  500  decrements the message display group parameter by N and the process  500  continues with step  630  of process  600 , discussed below. If step  527  is executed, the process  500  increments the message display group parameter by N and the process  500  continues with step  630  of process  600  ( FIG. 6 ). In addition, a user can browse messages by touching a date divider  107  on the spiral interface  100  in order to step through the messages according to the divider position.  
      If during step  520 , the user  515  presses on one of the N displayed e-mail message icons  130 , the process  500  will execute step  530 . During step  530 , the process  500  retrieves the e-mail message associated with the pressed message icon  130  from the e-mail server  330 . The process  500  then displays a full screen view ( FIG. 2 ) of the picture included in the e-mail message and displays three exemplary command icons: a reply function  240 , a text function  230  and a return function  220 , as illustrated in  FIG. 3  (step  531 ). The process  500  then waits for the user  315  to enter a command by pressing one of the command icons (step  533 ). If the user  315  presses the return function icon  220  (spiral), the process  500  continues with step  610  of process  600 . If the user  315  presses the text function icon  230 , the process  500  overlays the text message from the associated e-mail message on the full screen view of  FIG. 2  (step  535 ) and continues with step  533 . If the user  315  presses the reply function icon  240 , the process  500  displays a message composition window and transmit icon to enable the user to compose a response message to the sender of the present e-mail message (step  536 ).  
      The process  500  then executes step  537  and waits for the user  315  to complete the message composition and press the transmit icon. When the user  315  presses the transmit icon, the process  500  transmits the composed message to the e-mail server  330  (step  539 ) and returns to step  530 .  
      During step  520 , if the user  315  presses and holds an icon  110  representing a family member of the user&#39;s household, the process  500  then retrieves the list of e-mail messages addressed to the family member associated with the pressed icon  110  from the e-mail server  330  (step  540 ). In a further variation, the action performed during step  540  can retrieve email messages from the server  330  for host members  110  and only filter messages for a remote or guest member  120 .  
      The process  500  then continues by executing step  635  of process  600  ( FIG. 6 ).  
      During step  520 , if the user  315  presses and holds an icon representing a family member  110 ,  120 , the process  500  then retrieves the reachability information for the family member associated with the icon from the presence server  320  (step  550 ). The process  500  then creates and displays three communications icons (e-mail  151 , telephone  152 , and mobile phone  153 ) that provide reachability information indicating whether the family member is available by the associated form of communication. In addition, the process  500  preferably provides a mechanism to allow the user to manually update their reachability information and set the presented reachability status accordingly. The process  500  then returns to step  520  and continues in the manner described above.  
       FIG. 6  is a flow chart describing an exemplary embodiment of the spiral presentation process  600 . The process  600  first initializes the message display group parameter to N indicating that the first group of e-mail messages should be displayed on the spiral  105  (step  605 ). The process  600  then retrieves the list of family members in the household of the user  315  along with the picture (or user icon) and optional color code associated with each family member (step  610 ). During step  615 , the process  600  creates and displays an icon  110  of each family member discovered during step  610 . Each icon  110  optionally consists of a picture of a family member surrounded by a color border whose color matches that associated with the family member. The process  600  then retrieves the list of family members in another household along with the picture and color code associated with each family member (step  620 ). During step  625 , the process  600  creates and displays an icon  120  of each family member discovered during step  620 . Each icon  120  also consists of the picture of a family member surrounded by a color border whose color matches that associated with the family member.  
      The process  600  then retrieves the list of e-mail messages addressed to the family members  110  from the e-mail server  330  (step  630 ). The list of e-mail messages includes the name of the sender, a thumbnail picture, the creation time of the message and the time at which the e-mail server  330  received the message. The list of e-mail messages is sorted by the e-mail server  330  according to the creation time of each message.  
      The process  600  then selects the current one of the N messages from the list of e-mail messages (step  635 ). The number of messages selected and displayed may be statically or dynamically selected according to the desired image resolution as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art.  
      During step  637 , the process  600  then displays a spiral  105  segmented into time periods  107  appropriate for the range of creation times of the messages selected during step  635 . For instance, if the messages selected during step  635  were created on the same day, each segment  107  of the spiral  105  may represent four hours. Alternatively, if the messages selected during step  635  were created during a seven-day period, each segment  107  of the spiral  105  may represent one day.  
      For each message identified in the list of step  635 , the process  600  creates an icon  130  consisting of the thumbnail picture surrounded by a colored border (step  640 ). The color of the border is selected to match the color assigned to the sender (as designated during step  610  and  620 ). Each icon  130  is then placed at the point of the spiral  105  that is associated with the creation time of the message represented by the icon  130  (step  645 ).  
      The process  600  then performs a test during step  650  to determine if the list of e-mail messages contains messages created earlier then the N messages selected during step  635 . If it is determined during step  650  that there are no messages created earlier then the N messages selected during step  635 , then the process  600  continues with step  660 ; otherwise the process  600  displays the cues  145  indicating that there are messages created earlier than those on display (step  655 ). The process  600  then continues with step  660 .  
      During step  660 , the process  600  then performs a test to determine if the list of e-mail messages contains messages created later then the N messages selected during step  635 . If it is determined during step  660  that there are no messages created earlier then the N messages selected during step  635 , then the process  600  continues with step  520  of process  500 ; otherwise the process  600  displays the cues  147  indicating that there are messages created earlier than those on display (step  665 ). As previously indicated, the user can optionally browse messages by selecting a desired time interval  107 . The process  600  then proceeds with step  520  of  FIG. 5 .  
      Interaction Scenario  
      To provide an overview of the present invention and the interaction with the GUI, a full-story “interaction” scenario is described.  
      “Paul comes home after a busy day at work. He wants to see whether there are any messages for him, so he touches the homebound device. The homebound device, which was in the slideshow mode, starts up in the family shared area.  
      The family shared area shows a spiral that contains six pictures scaled in size in a time order, the same order in which they were sent to Paul&#39;s household. By the color of the borders of the pictures, he can see who has sent each message.  
      Paul decides to have a closer look at the second largest message in the spiral, so he presses on it to go to the full screen mode. In this mode, he can see the picture in a larger size. At the left side of the screen, there are three icons, which can be bright color or gray. He sees that the icon of the text message is enabled (bright blue color), so he touches it to read the text sent along with the picture. After he has read the message, he wants to respond to it. He touches the reply icon, writes a short note, and then presses the ok icon. Afterwards, he goes back to the spiral mode by pressing the return icon.  
      The family shared area also shows pictures of the members of both households. In the right upper corner, Paul sees his own household and, in the right lower corner, the other household. Each person has his/her own border color on their picture that matches the border color of the messages in the spiral that he/she sent. Next to each picture of the members of the other household is an icon that represents the reachability icon. By pressing it, Paul sees how he can most likely reach the other person. He presses the icon of his brother Carlo and sees three symbols: a computer that is white colored, a fixed phone that is gray, and a mobile phone that is also white colored. This means that Carlo is more likely to be reachable by an instant messaging application or by mobile phone.  
      In addition to the six pictures, the spiral provides two more areas to represent messages: two sets of six small colored squares (cues) at the beginning (left bottom corner) and at the end (centre) of the spiral. These cues indicate if there are messages either after or before the time frame of the six messages displayed in the central part of the spiral. Paul wants to see the previous six messages, so he presses the arrow icon placed in the centre of the spiral. The spiral then changes the time frame of the  6  scaled-size messages to show the previous six messages. He does the same to see the newest messages by pressing the arrow icon placed at the beginning of the spiral.  
      Now Paul wants to check the messages that have been sent only to him. By pressing his own picture, the system displays his personal area. What is more interesting for him is to see the messages that were recently exchanged between him and Carlo. He presses on Carlo&#39;s picture to activate the to-tell list between him and his brother. He wants to check if his brother has replied to some of the messages he has sent, so he presses the last message he sent to go to the full screen mode. The display indicates that the reply icon is active, so he presses it. A typical funny drawing made by Carlo is displayed followed by a note: “call you at 6”.  
      In his personal area, Paul can also set his own reachability information by pressing the reachability icon next to his own picture. He indicates that he can only be reached by fixed phone by pressing once on the fixed phone icon.  
      Suddenly, the new message icon is displayed indicating that a new message is now shown in the first position of the spiral. Paul immediately knows that it is from his niece Gabi by looking at the coloured border of the picture and notes that it is a drawing of a big slice of pizza. He activates the to-tell list of Gabi and remembers that she is coming this evening to tell stories about her last holidays and to explain in more detail about all the pictures she has been sending to them. So Paul knows what the drawing means: that he has to prepare his famous home made pizza for this evening.  
      Before going to do some shopping, he puts the screen back to the shared area by pressing again on his own picture. Then he presses on the slideshow icon to activate the slideshow mode. The display shows in sequence all messages sent to the shared area as a decorative background.” 
      This scenario illustrates most functions of the system and illustrates how it can support family members to stay in touch by means of an awareness system based on asynchronous communication.  
      It is to be understood that the embodiments and variations shown and described herein are merely illustrative of the principles of this invention and that various modifications may be implemented by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention.