1. A user interface to facilitate communications between parties, at least one of the parties being a user of the user interface, the user interface comprising: a display providing one or more display objects associated with configuring a data store, wherein: the data store is adapted to receive N parameters, N being an integer, the N parameters relate to at least one of a communications preference, context and policy, and the N parameters are employed to guide decisions that facilitate communications between the parties; and one or more inputs associated with the display objects to facilitate configuration of the user interface that receive input from the user specifying a plurality of costs to the user of interrupting the user in real-time with a communication, the costs of interrupting being specified for a context of the user at the time the communication is attempted, the context comprising a plurality of busyness levels of the user, the costs of interrupting comprising a first cost of interrupting specified for each of a plurality of communication modalities used for the communication for a first busyness level of the plurality of busyness levels and a second cost of interrupting specified for each of the plurality of communication modalities for a second busyness level of the plurality of busyness levels.