Design adjustments to the iOS Notification Center

11 min readJan 31, 2021

iOS as a platform has developed to a great extent since its inception in 2007. After more than a decade, iOS is a more refined and mature version of itself. Each year, Apple brings out a new version of iOS with remarkable features and changes that further enhance the user experience on the iPhones. However, one thing that iOS hasn’t really perfected yet is the Notification Center. In the last couple of years, Apple has managed to give a fair consideration to this. The Notification Center in iOS 14 has definitely made a mark and is unarguably well improved in comparison to the previous versions of iOS. However, it still lacks the punch. There is always room from improvement and the Notification Center in iOS is no exception. In this design project, I have tried to scrutinise the iOS Notification Center, and carefully articulated the pain points of the user. By taking some clues from the fairly advanced notification shade of Android, and considering the user needs, I have performed a thorough research and analysis on notifications. Further, I have pointed out some issues and proposed a few design adjustments for the iOS Notification Center, in accordance with the existing design language followed by iOS.

Note: This project was undertaken in Jan 2021. iOS 14.2 was the latest.

Problem Statement

It is no doubt that iOS has been successful in delivering promising features in a whole package that the users love. Nevertheless, iPhone users have struggled with the Notification Center for years. Though minimal and simplistic, the iOS Notification Center has truly tested the patience of the users with primitive design, bare minimum functionality and a not-so-intuitive workflow.

The problem statement for this project — “To identify the issues in the iOS Notification Center, perform a thorough research, and propose design solutions to make it better, in accordance with the existing design”.

The need for Notification Center

There are several kinds of apps that help the users get things done. Notifications are a channel for these apps to communicate important information and alerts to the users. The final destination for all the notifications is same — the Notification Center. The reason for this is that the users may not be actively using their iPhones all the time. Sometimes, the phone may be in a stand by mode, i.e. the screen is off. At other times, even if a user is using the phone, he/she may not have the opportunity or the need to provide immediate attention to the notification banner. In either case, the Notification Center serves as a place to display all the notifications. The users can visit the Notification Center anytime to view their notifications, and take appropriate actions. Thus, it is an invariably important part of the system.

The users

iPhones are used by all type of people. In today’s world, almost everybody has a smartphone, and an iPhone is just that. People from all age groups, genders and demographics use iPhone daily and hence, essentially interact with the Notification Center in iOS. The difference lies in the usage patterns. Different people use and interact with the Notification Center in different ways. With my understanding and observation, I have categorised the iPhone users in 4 broad categories, with respect to their usage of notifications.

Type 1: The one who clears all

doesn’t like the Notification Center at all
simply clears all the notifications without even noticing them
always has an empty Notification Center

Type 2: The average user

makes a decent use of the Notification Center
checks on the notifications and their content
opens/visits app by clicking on the notifications

Type 3: The power user

lives in the Notification Center
every conversation happens through notifications
reads notification content thoroughly (news, weather, etc.)
performs most of the tasks using notifications

Type 4: The one who doesn’t care

rarely opens the Notification Center
gets the job done by directly opening the apps
long list of notifications lies unattended

User needs

It is evident that not all users have similar requirements, because their usage differs.

Clearly, Type 1 and Type 4 users do not make the apt use of the Notification Center. There might be several reasons for this behaviour. They may not be interested in using the Notification Center. They may not have the need to use the Notification Center, because they just are happy using their phones just like that. They may not like how the Notification Center works. And what not.

Type 2 users do make use of the Notification Center, but in a limited capacity. If these users want to make full use, there are features that already exist. Once they start using notifications extensively, they become power users and thus, fall into another category.

Type 3 users are the ones who the make the most out of notifications. They already use the Notification Center to its fullest extent. These are the users who actually benefit from an improved Notification Center. They want to do more. They want to have a better experience. This is precisely the category of users that I wanted to design for.

Their needs are simple — get notified, view the content/information, and take appropriate actions. Now, the actions that can be taken on the notifications are the crucial part where notifications can be enhanced. Following is a list of actions that power users need:

open the concerned app directly through notifications
reply to conversations/messages directly
manage notification preferences
prioritise notifications
snooze notifications
dismiss notifications

Now the above list of user needs might seem very naive, but the ease of performing these actions is what matters.

Competitive Research: Android notifications

When it comes to performing a competitive research about notifications on smartphones, there is one name that can never be ignored — Android. The Google owned OS has exceptionally well structured and designed notifications. Android notification shade has been a true pinnacle since the beginning, and it has only gotten better over the years. The simplicity, minimalism and yet powerful functionality of Android notifications is the kind of luxury that iOS users haven’t been able to get their hands on.

Some of the really interesting features of Android notification shade that make it so intuitive, full of functionality and yet, simple are described below.

Quick Replies

The ease and directness of the ability to reply to conversations and messages right there from the notification is one of my favourites. The option to reply to any message lies right in front on the notification card. Just a tap, and the keyboard appears.

Smart Suggestions

In recent Android updates, replying to conversations from notifications has become even better. Smart suggestions are the suggested replies to a message and are present right below the notification content. All one needs to do is tap on the suggested reply, and done, the reply is sent!

Suggested/Relevant Actions

One can take relevant and appropriate actions on a notification from the notification shade itself. May it be marking a message as read, or archiving an email, or opening a link, or copying OTP, all of these relevant actions can be done just with a tap. In fact, replying to conversation is just one of the suggested actions.

Snoozing notifications

Snoozing notifications on Android is as easy as it can get. A swipe in either direction on the notification card reveals an icon to snooze and voila, that’s it. One can also choose the amount of time to snooze the notification for.

Notification categorisation

With Android 11, notifications regarding conversations and messages are grouped at the top on the notification shade. Other notifications are grouped below, and finally the silent notifications come at the bottom of the notification shade. Additionally, one can also prioritise notifications from a certain app from the notification shade itself.

Issues with iOS Notifications

Well, to be honest, the Notification Center isn’t that bad. There have been improvements over time. Yet, somehow it doesn’t feel perfect. I deep dived and found some issues that could be fixed in the iOS Notification Center.

Redundancy with right swipe and tap to open

The concerned app can be opened by tapping on the notification. Additionally, swiping right on the notification does the same thing. The redundancy makes no sense. Instead, some other functionality could be implemented for the right swipe.

Complexity of minimise and clear buttons

The clear button, which is a cross icon, doesn’t clear the notification in one go. Upon tapping on the clear button, it changes into a wider button with the text “Clear” (or “Clear All”, if grouped notifications). An extra tap is then required to clear the notification.

In case of grouped notifications, tapping on the grouped card expands them into individual notifications. The minimise/collapse button shows an up-arrow icon along with text, while the clear button shows just the cross icon. Upon tapping the clear button, it changes into a wider button as discussed above, and the minimise/collapse button shrinks to just the up-arrow icon.

These eccentricities are just not required. Why is there a need to take an extra step for such simple task?

Lack of smart suggestions

In case of texts and messages, one can either long-press on the notification or swipe left and then tap on “View” to reply. However, it would be much more convenient if smart suggestions could be used to reply easily.

Inability to snooze notifications

Currently, there is no way to snooze the notifications. Either you leave the notification unattended (which results in cluttered list of notifications) or you simply take action on it. Snoozing notifications is a great way to get notified some time later if there is no urgent need to pay attention.

Poor grouping and organisation

By default, the notifications are grouped “automatically”, a not-so-useful way of grouping. Though there is an option to group notifications by app, it has to be manually turned on for each app. Well, that is tedious.

Also, new notifications are at the top whereas the remaining ones are grouped below the title “Notification Center”. So, even if there are say, 5 notifications from same app, they wouldn’t be grouped together if two of them are new. The new ones would be at the top and remaining three would be somewhere below.

Basically, the notifications need to be organised in a better manner. And that should be the user’s choice, not “automatic”.

Wireframes of proposed solutions

After identifying the issues mentioned above, I went on to fix them. I created basic wireframes in order to convey the solution in an efficient manner. Of course, the primary focus in mind was to help the power users in the best possible way.

All notifications now show under the title “Notification Center”. There is no disparity between new and old notifications.
Upon tapping on a grouped notification, it expands the group (as it did previously). The minimise and clear buttons are replaced by arrow-up and cross icons, which perform the desired job in a single tap. No more complexity.

Swiping right on a notification reveals the “snooze” option, and the redundant option to “open” is removed.
Tapping on the “snooze” option reveals the menu to select the duration of snooze. And that’s it, the notification is snoozed (i.e. hidden) and will be visible after the desired time duration.

Swiping left on a notification reveals the same set of options as previously, but the “manage” option now has a revamped menu.
There are three delivery options for notifications — priority (appears at the top of Notification Center), prominent (normally), or quiet (appears in the Notification Center silently)

Notifications regarding messages and conversations now have smart suggestions for replying quickly. A single tap on them reveals the keyboard.
One can add further text or directly send the reply.

Integration with the existing design language

The proposed solutions can be very well integrated with the existing look and feel of the iOS Notification Center. The high fidelity designs show the same.

Grouped notifications, simple minimise and clear buttons:

Snoozing notification:

Priority notifications:

Smart suggestions:

Conclusion

The entire process — analysing the notifications, finding out the pain points and user needs, comparing the iOS Notification Center with the Android notification shade, identifying issues, coming up with effective design solutions and finally, integrating with the existing design language — was exhausting. But then, it taught me a number of lessons. This project gave me the opportunity to examine and understand the importance of notifications and how they are actually used by the end consumers. The principles that guide the journey of notifications are fairly similar in both Android and iOS, despite their design implementation being different. At the core of both platforms, notifications intend to serve the same purpose. Yes, Android may be better in this aspect, and there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. So, there is no harm in taking inspiration from Android. What ultimately matters is the end product, the end design and how it impacts the user experience. The production of wireframes was an effective way to get a brief overview about how well the proposed solutions would be. And finally, the design of high fidelity images which showcase the integration of solutions with iOS design made me realise how carefully the design system has been created and how I could find my ways to fit the solutions. Conclusively, this was my attempt at improving the iOS Notification Center and I have managed to give out a better design.