Make Notifications Great Again — The Bad Dudes
This is my 3rd post in the series of notification design. You can find the first 2 parts here: Part 1, Part 2
Notifications are there to make use of to try and re-engage your user, but annoy the recipient with them and the user has 2 options,
A. Go to the settings and disable the notifications from the app.
OR
B. Uninstall the app.
And it is most likely to that the user goes with option B since that is the easiest thing to do rather than look for the notification settings. Thus, in trying to re-engage the user, you’ve successfully managed to completely lose the user.
In order to design a good notification system, you need to understand the experience on the user’s end. Deciding only a few trigger points to notify your users is not the best strategy here. You need to take the entire experience into consideration.
By others faults the wise correct their own.
When you learn from others’ bad implementations, it could help you in determining what you don’t want. And understanding what you don’t want is a significant step in making what you want.
On that note, here are some of my recent annoying experiences compiled together.
#1 Them Duplicates
This is one of the common issue I have noticed in many not-so-popular apps where you end up getting the same notifications again and again. You might not mean to send them and there maybe bugs in the system causing this which are often overlooked.
These should be looked at seriously. This is one of the main channels which will direct the user to your product. This is the experience that you give your users even before they are interacting with what you have in store for them inside.
#2 You don’t have to tell me twice
This is an extension to the first experience mentioned above.
I understand you have lots of things to promote. But don’t keep interrupting my notifications again and again. If I don’t click on your notification once, sending it again in quick succession, even if it is a different message will not necessarily make me consider clicking on it. Oh, is it a different message? Doesn’t matter. Never expect users to read the content anyway— UX Myth #1.
#3 Preaching to the choir
With notifications, you want to target your install user base so that they reengage with you product. It doesn’t really help much if you end up constantly targeting your active users, and worse, when they are actually using your product. This is a perfect recipe for spoiling the experience of your existing and most valuable users.
#4 Make some noise… NOT!
If you’re setting up notifications for your app, you also have a control over the sound that it would make. And having that control on the development end doesn’t mean you misuse it.
The worst offenders are those who implement louder and longer sound notes for their notifications. This is just another reason to ignore the message altogether and look for that uninstall option.
Using customized sounds for your notifications should be thought through before implementing. While having a separate sound would make your message more noticeable, it would also mean that it is easier to ignore it since as a user, I will be trained to this sound being a thing that I don’t want to interact with. Having the default sound would at least make the user look at the message before deciding whether to engage with it or not.
In case you still decide to go with customized sounds, try not to keep it too disturbing. Ask yourself whether you would mind when your phone randomly goes off with that particular sound notification. If the answer is yes, then it would be a good option to avoid putting it in.
#5 I just met you, and this is crazy, here’s my notification, click me, maybe!
With such an overload of apps, everyone is craving for the attention. Notifications are a channel to get that attention. However, that attention you get is valuable only if your user cares about the app in the first place. Being a just installed app on the device and you start sending these notifications, it is less likely that the user will click on it to come back to the app and more likely that the app would be uninstalled.
Do not start bombarding your users with notifications when they are new to your system. This is easier said than done, since for new users, you need to direct them to the app in order to get them into the habit and retain them. After all, out of sight is out of mind.
This is driven completely by your product design. If your first session is not fruitful enough to make your users care about the product, getting hit by notifications will work negatively. Free-to-play games handle this in a way where the initial session is designed to end at a point where you would be waiting for your resources to be regenerated. This would mean that the next time a notification is sent, you’ll have a reason to visit the app. Also, the duration of the first time gate is generally very low so that you are notified when the new game is still fresh in your mind.
#6 Schrödinger’s Notification
While it is understandable that you want your users to click on the notification to come and engage with your app, having completely vague messaging doesn’t really help the cause in any way.
The above example from WhatsApp was most probably a result of using the low data mode on the phone though, but these are the kind of notifications which don’t clearly communicate the reason I should return to the app are more likely to be ignored.
Be smart with your messaging for the notifications. Put in effort so that you effectively build up the right amount of intrigue for the user to consider clicking on it.
Takeaways
Notifications should be an important part of product design. Target your notifications in a smarter way so that you don’t end up hampering the complete user experience.
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