SmartReminder: A Case Study on Context-Sensitive Applications

Designing context-sensitive applications is challenging. We design and implement SmartReminder to explore designing context-sensitive applications and to demonstrate how the Solar system can be used in developing such applications. SmartReminder is an application that reminds the user based on contextual information. Current appointment-reminder applications remind the user about their appointments at an arbitrarily specified time. For instance, they might remind the user ten minutes before each appointment. SmartReminder, on the other hand, uses contextual information, like location, to better estimate the appropriate reminder time for each appointment. It reminds the user based on where they are, where they need to be, and how long it will take them to get there. This paper presents SmartReminder as an illustration of how context-sensitive applications can be designed using the Solar system for dissemination of contextual information.