Bounded-deferral policies for reducing the disruptiveness of notifications

摘要

The present invention relates to a system and methodology for reducing disruption costs associated with notifying a user of messages, automated assistance, and/or alerts. According to one aspect of the present invention, bounded-deferral policies may be employed within a notification platform, wherein one or more messages of varying degrees of assigned and/or context-driven priority are relayed to users with a deferral policy guided by the priority and determined states of the users. Users can define available free states according to such inputs as a calendar and time of day. Lower priority messages can be delayed until a more interruptible period of time for the user such as during a sensed or predicted completion of a task, a break or pause in desktop activities, a break in office collaboration activities (pause in conversation), or reduced driving load, such as coming to a stop (in an automobile setting). Higher priority messages can be immediately forwarded to users or sent after a predetermined time configured by the user.