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Semi-structured messages are surprisingly useful for computer-supported coordination

Published: 03 December 1986 Publication History

Abstract

This paper argues that using a set of semi-structured message templates is surprisingly helpful in designing a variety of computer-based communication and coordination systems. Semi-structured messages can help provide automatic aids for: (1) composing messages to be sent, (2) selecting, sorting, and prioritizing messages that are received, (3) responding automatically to some messages, and (4) suggesting likely responses to other messages. The use of these capabilities is illustrated in a range of applications including electronic mail, computer conferencing, calendar management, and task tracking. The applications show how ideas from artificial intelligence (such as inheritance and production rules) and ideas from user interface design (such as interactive graphical editors) can be combined in novel ways for dealing with semi-structured messages. The final part of the paper discusses how communities can evolve a useful set of message type definitions.

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    CSCW '86: Proceedings of the 1986 ACM conference on Computer-supported cooperative work
    December 1986
    390 pages
    ISBN:9781450373654
    DOI:10.1145/637069
    • Conference Chair:
    • Herb Krasner,
    • Program Chair:
    • Irene Greif
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    Published: 03 December 1986

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