Behavioral Pattern Interpretation Guide

You have computed behavioral metrics from email timestamps. Your job is to find meaningful patterns—what do these numbers reveal about how the user communicates?

Available Metrics

Timing Patterns

• hourDistribution: Emails sent by hour (0-23)
• dayDistribution: Emails sent by day of week (Sun-Sat)
• peakHours: Top 3 most active hours
• nightOwl: Boolean—more night emails than morning

Cadence

• emailsPerWeek: Average volume
• busiestDay: Day with most sent emails
• quietestDay: Day with fewest sent emails

Conversation Style

• avgThreadDepth: Average messages per conversation
• startsConversations: Ratio of threads user initiated
• tendsToReply: Ratio of threads user responded to

Interpreting Timing Patterns

Peak Hours

What peak hours reveal:

• 9-11am peak: Standard business workflow, "morning person"
• 2-4pm peak: Afternoon catch-up, post-meeting communication
• 8-10pm peak: Evening worker, catches up after hours
• Late night (11pm-2am): Night owl, possibly different timezone collaboration

Night Owl Detection

The nightOwl flag compares 10pm-4am activity to 6am-noon activity.

If nightOwl = true:

• User might work non-traditional hours
• Could indicate timezone differences (working with teams elsewhere)
• Or simply a preference for evening work

How to present:
"You're more active at night than morning—your emails tend to go out after 10pm rather than before noon."

Day of Week Patterns

Weekend email patterns:

• High weekend activity: Workaholic tendencies or flexible schedule
• Zero weekend activity: Strong work-life boundaries
• Sunday evening spike: "Getting ready for Monday" pattern

Weekday patterns:

• Monday heavy: Week planning, catching up from weekend
• Friday light: Wrapping up, avoiding new threads
• Mid-week peak: Deep in the work week

Interpreting Cadence

Emails Per Week

Volume interpretation:

• Under 10 per week: Light email user (might prefer other channels)
• 10 to 30 per week: Moderate, typical professional
• 30 to 50 per week: Heavy email user
• Over 50 per week: Email is a primary communication channel

Context matters: Compare to their role. A manager sending 20/week is different from an individual contributor sending 20/week.

Busiest vs Quietest Day

What the contrast reveals:

• Large gap (5x difference): Very structured week, clear work patterns
• Small gap (1.5x): Consistent communicator, no strong day preference
• Weekend as busiest: Non-traditional schedule or overwhelm spilling over

Interpreting Conversation Style

Thread Depth

What avgThreadDepth reveals:

• <2: Quick exchanges, transactional communication
• 2-4: Moderate discussion, typical professional threads
• 4-6: Engaged conversations, collaborative style
• 6+: Deep discussions, might indicate complex projects or relationships

Initiator vs Responder

startsConversations ratio:

• >0.6: Proactive communicator, reaches out first
• 0.4-0.6: Balanced initiator and responder
• <0.4: Reactive communicator, mostly responds to others

What this might mean:

• High initiator: Leadership role, networker, driver of agendas
• High responder: Support role, consultant, service-oriented
• Balanced: Collaborative style

Patterns to Highlight

Work Style Indicators

• Early bird + initiator: Proactive, sets the agenda
• Night owl + responder: Reactive, catches up off-hours
• High thread depth + low volume: Quality over quantity
• High volume + low thread depth: Broadcast style

Potential Pain Points

Present tactfully—these might indicate issues:

• Very high volume with low thread depth: Might be overwhelmed, many shallow interactions
• All weekday peaks, zero weekend: Could be healthy boundaries OR missing work-life balance context
• Extreme night owl patterns: Could indicate timezone challenges or work-life concerns

Positive Patterns

• Consistent timing: Reliable, predictable communicator
• Balanced initiation: Collaborative style
• Good thread depth: Engaged in conversations
• Clear weekday/weekend separation: Healthy boundaries

Writing the Analysis

Lead with Personality, Not Numbers

Bad: "Your hourDistribution peaks at 10am and 3pm. avgThreadDepth is 3.4."

Good: "You're a morning person who gets emails out early, then circles back in the afternoon. Your conversations tend to go 3-4 rounds—you don't just send one-liners."

Make It Actionable (Gently)

If you notice patterns that might be concerning:

Don't say: "You send too many emails at night, which is unhealthy."

Do say: "A lot of your email activity happens after 10pm. If that's intentional, great—but if you're trying to protect evening time, you might look at scheduling sends."

Be Curious, Not Judgmental

Present observations as discoveries:

• "Interesting: Tuesday is your heaviest day, Saturday your lightest."
• "You initiate about 60% of your threads—you're often the one starting conversations."

Sample Output Structure

## How You Email

### Timing
[Describe when they're most active, morning/night tendency, week pattern]

### Volume & Style
[Describe emails per week, thread depth, initiator vs responder tendency]

### What This Suggests
[1-2 sentences synthesizing what these patterns might mean about their work style]

When Patterns Are Unremarkable

Not everyone has dramatic patterns. If the data is fairly average:

• Don't force insights that aren't there
• Say something like: "Your email patterns are pretty typical—moderate volume, business hours, mix of starting and responding to threads."
• This is fine! Not everything needs to be a revelation.