Making Sense Of Archived E-Mail: Exploring The Enron Collection With Netlens

Informal communications media pose new challenges for information-systems design, but the nature of informal interaction offers new opportunities as well. This paper describes Net Lens-E-mail, a system designed to support exploration of the content-actor network in large e-mail collections. Unique features of Net Lens-E-mail include close coupling of orientation, specification, restriction, and expansion, and introduction and incorporation of a novel capability for iterative projection between content and actor networks within the same collection. Scenarios are presented to illustrate the intended employment of Net Lens-E-mail, and design walkthroughs with two domain experts provide an initial basis for assessment of the suitability of the design by scholars and analysts.