Projects/Usability/HIG/Notifications

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Revision as of 14:20, 31 December 2013 by Htietze (talk | contribs) (→‎Behavior)


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