Despite the fact that a third of all cases of unintentional
medication non-adherence are caused by simple forgetfulness,
the majority of interventions neglect this issue. Even
though patients have access to smartphone applications
(“apps”) designed to help them remember medication,
neither their quality nor effectiveness has been evaluated
yet. We report the findings of a functionality review of 229
medication reminder apps and a thematic analysis of their
1,012 user reviews. Our research highlights the gap between
the theory and practice: while the literature shows
that many medication regimens are habitual in nature and
the presence of daily routines supports remembering, existing
apps rely on timer-based reminders. To address this
disparity, we present design requirements for building
medication reminders that support the routine aspect of
medication-taking and its individual nature, and demonstrate
how they could be implemented to move from
passive alerts to a smarter memory and routine assistant.