Projects/Usability/HIG/Notifications: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 14:20, 31 December 2013

Purpose

A notification is an information that is not directly relevant to the user's current task. It is displayed via a certain notification mechanism on a panel above/below the taskbar notification area. Notifications inform users about non-critical problems, but they don't prevent them.

Examples

Guidelines

Is this the right control

Use a notification to inform about a non-critical problem that is not directly relevant to the user's current task.
Do not use notifications for user assistance (consider to use tool-tips for short information, or refer to help system for extended text).
Do not use notifications for context relevant information that might interfere with the actual workflow (consider to use a message dialog).

Behavior

Notifications disappear automatically after a short period (unless the cursor hovers over them), but can be closed by the user at any point (KNotification::NotificationFlag == CloseOnTimeout).
Do not add more than three actions to a particular notification. And take care about limited space for labels. For instance, Skip, Info, and Buy in case of Amarok's "Now playing" notification.

Appearance

Make sure to make the origin of the notification clear from the notification title. For instance: "Amarok: Now playing" or "Konsole: Event".
Keep the notification content concise (no more than about three simple sentences).
Provide actionable information (e.g. "Low battery power: Approximately 13 min (2%) capacity remaining.").

Implementation

@@ Line 2: / Line 2: @@
 == Purpose ==
-A ''notification'' is an information that is not directly relevant to the user's current task. It is displayed via a certain [[Projects/Usability/HIG/NotificationMechanism|notification mechanism]] on a panel above/below the taskbar notification area. Notifications inform users about non-critical problems, but they don't prevent them.
+A ''notification'' is an information that is not directly relevant to the user's current task. It is displayed via a certain notification mechanism on a panel above/below the taskbar notification area. Notifications inform users about non-critical problems, but they don't prevent them.
-Notifications pop up and overlay all other windows. Multiple notifications are stacked vertically. Notifications disappear after a short period automatically (unless the cursor hovers over them), but can be closed by the user at any point. Each notification has its own [[Projects/Usability/HIG/CentralConfiguration|central configuration]] which can be reached by a button next to the close button.
 == Examples ==
-(remark: pictures only?)
-=== Positive ===
-* Email received
-* New update available
-* Download completed
-* Low battery power
-todo: picture
-=== Negative ===
-* Low space on medium (this information becomes relevant for file managers and invoked as modal message in this case)
-todo: picture
 == Guidelines ==
-* Do not use notifications for user assistance (consider to use [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Tooltip|tool-tips]] or [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Balloon|balloons]] for short information, or refer to [[Projects/Usability/HIG/HelpSystem|help system]] for extended text.
+=== Is this the right control ===
-* Do not use notifications for context relevant information that might interfere with the actual workflow (consider to use a [[Projects/Usability/HIG/MessageDialog|message dialog]].
+* Use a notification to inform about a non-critical problem that is not directly relevant to the user's current task.
-* Do not add controls to notification. <span style="color:blue">Thomas: I would remove this. Adding action buttons is allowed in the API and has reasonable use cases, other controls simply cannot be added technically)</span>
+* Do not use notifications for user assistance (consider to use [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Tooltip|tool-tips]] for short information, or refer to [[Projects/Usability/HIG/HelpSystem|help system]] for extended text).
-* Do not override system settings. (remark: more specific)  <span style="color:blue">Thomas: Which settings do you mean here?</span>
+* Do not use notifications for context relevant information that might interfere with the actual workflow (consider to use a [[Projects/Usability/HIG/Messages|message dialog]]).
-* Provide title and content text (remark: not precise enough) <span style="color:blue">Thomas: guidelines regarding the wording of title and content are indeed very important. Maybe celeste can help here.</span>
-* Make sure to make the origin of the notification clear from the notification title. For instance: "Amarok: Now playing" or "Konsole: Event"
+=== Behavior ===
+* Notifications disappear automatically after a short period (unless the cursor hovers over them), but can be closed by the user at any point (KNotification::NotificationFlag == CloseOnTimeout).
+* Do not add more than three actions to a particular notification. And take care about limited space for labels. For instance, ''Skip'', ''Info'', and ''Buy'' in case of Amarok's "Now playing" notification.
+=== Appearance ===
+* Make sure to make the origin of the notification clear from the notification title. For instance: "Amarok: Now playing" or "Konsole: Event".
 * Keep the notification content concise (no more than about three simple sentences).
-* Customize notification with the origin's icon.  <span style="color:blue">Heiko: (remark: word "origin" needs to be replaced; "icon" might be replaced by technical term) </span>
+* Provide actionable information (e.g. "Low battery power: Approximately 13 min (2%) capacity remaining.").
-* Provide actionable information (e.g. "Low battery power" "Only 13 min (2%) capacity remaining. Please save your stuff now. Your system will get shut down soon.") <span style="color:blue">Heiko: (remark: should be according actual text)</span>
-* <span style="color:blue">Heiko: to be defined: Are all notifications configured in KCM? If not, how to separate? -- Kai Uwe: All notifications emitted through KNotify (ie. application has a notifyrc file) can be configured. Using the FDO notification dbus iface directly is discouraged. In 4.11 there's a configure button on notifications.</span>
+== Implementation ==
-== Code snippets ==
+[[Category:Usability]][[Category:Behavior]][[Category:User_Assistance]][[Category:User-driven_assistance]]
-to be done