Design rules of notification system

We know that someone is visiting outside the door when the doorbell rings, and someone is calling when the phone rings. The message push of devices such as SMS and various products also plays a similar role.

The difference is that the importance of message push becomes less important with the abuse of (notification), and its role is far less urgent than in reality. Most short messages have become verification codes and various promotions.

With the explosion of information, more and more notifications reach users in various ways. For example, the count of unread messages, red dot prompts, even though we already know that the role is not important. When the notification content becomes secondary and abused, it seems to be a function that violates the design principle-interrupting the user's current behavior. Because it breaks the hierarchical relationship between users and products, and breaks things outside products to attract users' attention, this is a very disturbing behavior. For example, I was reading a book and suddenly received an unimportant message, which would make me very disgusted. So in order not to be dominated by the red dot and disturbed by the notice, I will push away all the products in my mobile phone.

Similarly, many users are addicted to using notifications. It controls the user's desire to control a product and is worried about missing some information. For example, kol released a little red book, which attracted many praises and comments, but he couldn't keep staring at it. At this time, the notice played a very good role.

For excellent product leaders or designers, including operators, making good use of the preview can grasp the psychology of users, skillfully keep users in the product, and even help to establish contact with users who intend to give up the product and promote interaction.

Definition: a functional mode that attracts users' attention and lets them know the dynamic information of new events. The product sends it to users and communicates with them.

According to the definition, there are two forms of notification, namely, passive read-only and operational feedback. Passive read-only means that information can be read, but it cannot be operated; Operation feedback type refers to the notification that users can operate, such as the address information confirmation notification after the payment of a treasure order is successful.

1. Communication Center

The message center here refers to the information collection center (mail transfer station), but it is not necessarily the source of information. This means that the information source may be that many users like your article below. This praise behavior is summarized in the message center, and then the author is guided to the article page to see the details (the final node) by using the message center. So it is a summary table. But it may also be the source of information, such as some system notifications, telling the upgrade, because it has no other functions to carry, so it will only appear in the message center.

Or like the notification center of the ios system, if the notification is pushed by the app, it will guide the user into an app; If the notification is a system behavior, such as do not disturb mode, [Incoming calls and notifications will be muted before 6: 00] This notification can only be operated in the notification center. If you want to change, you need to open the settings manually.

2. Notification indicator

4. Push time

We often find that in various products, different types of notifications will be summarized under their own types. Including the information received by the user, it usually tells the user what kind of information it belongs to. Sometimes the title may be thin, but the user can judge what kind of information the information belongs to by the icon, without even looking at the title and content carefully. [The picture is being uploaded ... (-8D0694-1606376556559-0)]

Reading indicator

Just like the red dot mentioned above, what is displayed after entering the message center of the app.

8. Summary

It can be seen that there is a specific notification method. Once the main objectives of the notice and the problems to be solved, including how they affect the business and attract users, can determine the specific style of the notice.

Common notification types

1. User information notification

It is mainly generated by users actively and sent to other users for passive reception. Its function is to promote the interactive relationship between users, thus improving the evaluation rate and duration of users' use of products. For example, WeChat message sending, Zhihu private message, mobile phone short message and so on. This kind of notice can be given to the user with or without operation, and read the reply without operation; The operation is to filter, read and delete the user's information.

This is the most common notification type, which can be seen in most social products and products with social characteristics.

* Description:

The reason why information is given to users is that user information can be divided into interested information and uninterested information, which mainly depends on people. People who are not interested frequently send messages, which will affect users' goodwill towards products. After all, there are many user messages that users don't want to accept, so in social products, users can delete friends or blacken friends; In products with social attributes, users can hack their accounts, which has reached the demand of not being harassed.

4. Smart push category notification

When you switch cities, public comments and other products will push notices to tell users what attractions and foods are worth visiting in this city. Although this kind of notification is not intelligent, at least there is such a demand in the user community. This appeal is sometimes not consciously perceived, because users may not remember which product to use to find nearby food. When this notice appeared, it just solved the user's problem and improved the user's goodwill towards the product.

Now the notification of products tends to be intelligent, and an irrelevant notice will not be sent in the middle of the night. The main reasons for this kind of problems still lie in products, design and operation. No efforts have been made in this regard, and notification is only used as a common tool. Causes the user to start rejecting the notification and forcibly close the notification. After that, it is difficult for users to turn on the empathy effect. As this function, you can recall how you were disturbed by other products.

With the development of big data, I believe that the future notification system will be more comprehensive and can achieve a model of thousands of people.

5. Summary-How to design a notice

A. interference minimization: notification itself is mandatory and intrusive. Its purpose is to attract users' attention to products, so we should seriously think about the content, time and frequency of sending notifications; Don't remind users of the content that is already displayed on the current screen; Don't push system information irrelevant to users.

B. Cross-device: When a user reads a message, it should not be displayed. Similarly, users should also be able to find read information on other devices that are more suitable for receiving messages. User notifications should be synchronized on all devices.

1. Notification has summoning property, but it will become interference if it is too frequent, so pay attention to the frequency and content importance of notification.

2. Designers or product managers should sort out the contents of the notice, so as to maintain or add the push information that may be needed for the necessary requirements.

3. There are generally two kinds of notifications, one is push read-only and the other is operation feedback; Designers need to make corresponding designs according to different types of notices, and analyze specific problems.

4. If you want to use the notification well, you need to have a detailed understanding of the business, and then bring in the main points listed in this article, so that you can design a more experienced notification mode.

5. The notification rule will not deviate from the scope of this article.

Reference:/Notice-Design-Rules