Evaluating user preferences for adaptive reminding

We are developing an adaptive reminding system that tailors its reminders to its users' reminding preferences through real-time interaction and feedback. To determine the potential utility of such a system, we conducted a multi-phase user study, presented in this paper, in which we evaluate people's preferences for the visual presentation of reminders. Results indicate that people generally agree on the relative annoyance levels of visual reminders, and further, in certain contexts, more "annoying" or intrusive reminder styles are preferred. However, while there are some overarching patterns of agreement about the contexts in which certain types of reminders are preferable, preliminary evaluation also indicates that there are significant differences among people's preferences for specific visual reminders. This motivates the design and development of adaptive reminding systems that learn their users' individual preferences.