[Paper Review] An Exploratory Study of Calendar Use

Manas Tungare, Manuel A. Pérez-Quiñones+1 more|ArXiv.org|Sep 19, 2008

Personal Information Management and User Behavior32 references18 citations

TL;DR

This exploratory study investigates personal calendar use through surveys, interviews, and artifact collection, revealing that users rely on multiple calendars—including paper ones—despite electronic options, use multiple alarms for reminders, and employ calendars for life-archival and reporting. The findings highlight critical gaps in current electronic calendar design, urging more flexible, user-centered systems that support prospective memory and hybrid digital-paper workflows.

ABSTRACT

In this paper, we report on findings from an ethnographic study of how people use their calendars for personal information management (PIM). Our participants were faculty, staff and students who were not required to use or contribute to any specific calendaring solution, but chose to do so anyway. The study was conducted in three parts: first, an initial survey provided broad insights into how calendars were used; second, this was followed up with personal interviews of a few participants which were transcribed and content-analyzed; and third, examples of calendar artifacts were collected to inform our analysis. Findings from our study include the use of multiple reminder alarms, the reliance on paper calendars even among regular users of electronic calendars, and wide use of calendars for reporting and life-archival purposes. We conclude the paper with a discussion of what these imply for designers of interactive calendar systems and future work in PIM research.

Motivation & Objective

• Understand how individuals manage personal information using calendars in everyday life, particularly in the context of diverse technological options.
• Investigate the persistence of paper calendars despite widespread access to electronic calendar systems.
• Explore the role of alarms, reminders, and synchronization across devices in personal information management (PIM).
• Identify unmet needs in current electronic calendar systems, especially regarding prospective memory and long-term information archiving.
• Inform the design of future interactive calendar systems by uncovering user behaviors and preferences from real-world usage patterns.

Proposed method

• Conducted a three-phase ethnographic study: initial online survey to gather broad usage patterns, followed by in-depth personal interviews with selected participants.
• Transcribed and performed content analysis on interview data to identify recurring themes and user behaviors.
• Collected and analyzed calendar artifacts (e.g., printed calendars, annotated paper planners, digital calendar exports) to understand real-world usage.
• Used semi-structured interview guides to explore calendar use across devices (desktop, PDA, mobile), paper formats (wall calendars, printed views), and sharing practices.
• Explored user motivations for using alarms, syncing calendars, and maintaining multiple calendar systems.
• Integrated findings from surveys, interviews, and artifacts to derive design implications for future PIM systems.

Experimental results

Research questions

• RQ1 How do individuals use electronic and paper calendars in their daily personal information management routines?
• RQ2 What factors influence the choice between electronic and paper calendars, and why do users maintain multiple calendar systems?
• RQ3 How do users employ alarms and notifications, and what roles do they serve beyond time-based reminders?
• RQ4 In what ways do users use calendars for purposes beyond scheduling, such as life-archiving or reporting?
• RQ5 What challenges or failures do users experience with current calendar systems, and how do they compensate?

Key findings

• Participants frequently used multiple calendars, including both electronic and paper formats, even when not required to do so.
• Many users set multiple alarms for key events, indicating a need for layered or repeated reminders beyond single alerts.
• Despite regular use of electronic calendars, participants continued to rely on paper calendars for planning, visualization, and note-taking.
• A significant number of users used calendars for life-archival and reporting purposes, such as recording public events, holidays, or long-term commitments.
• Users often made changes to printed or paper calendar copies and sometimes synchronized these back to electronic systems, suggesting a hybrid workflow.
• Alarm usage was highly variable, with users setting different advance warnings depending on the nature of the event, such as preparation time or urgency.