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I designed a program that is used to send data through the socket. In each program action, I display a message about process state.

I'm confused by when to display a Notice message or Info message. Some of the programs that I have encountered use both terms.

What is the difference between Notice and Info messages? And when this increased to a Warning?

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I don't know if other people think about these conventions in the same way I do but the way I see them is.

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Notice: Simply a statement that is non-actionable, use these to alert the user of something smaller and passive that you want the user to notice, such as an event that has happened like a successful submit.

Info: Actionable statement that you need the user to see and act on, but with no negative connotation (see Warning/Error), use this for things like "There is a new update to this Software"

Warning: Negative connotation, given before anything goes wrong but warns users of imminent problems if they proceed down a certain path. Such as "email left blank, you cannot submit without valid email".

Error: Negative connotation, given after something has already gone wrong, try to include what went wrong and how to fix said issue.

don't get me wrong these are subtle differences and could likely be used interchangeably but that is how I see them.

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  • So, from logging level, Notice is should less verbose than Info, I mean completeness levels of information that should appear to user? By the way, from my point, Notice have more negative connotation than Info. But thank you. :D
    – bayuah
    Jul 30, 2015 at 13:40
  • Yah for logging on a program I would use Notice for things like "command executed" or "finished at 11:11pm", while Info would be like "command fooBar() is deprecated, use barFoo() instead"
    – DasBeasto
    Jul 30, 2015 at 13:44
  • Yeah, like you said, it's "interchangeably". So in my opinion, it's depend of what you believe or/and what guide you follow. :D
    – bayuah
    Jul 30, 2015 at 13:56
  • I would not agree with your example of a Warning: If the email is a mandatory field, leaving it blank blocks further processing. To me, that's an error message.
    – virtualnobi
    Apr 26, 2017 at 6:17
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You are dealing with communication vs information question.

The two words 'information' and 'communication' are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.

Sydney J. Harris

So messages that provide infromation (info messages) could esclate to warning if you require action from the user or clear "consent" before an action is taken. A warning is generally communicated to the user when his action can not be reversed, the user will then have a choice: to accept and proceed or cancel.

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  • "user will then have a choice". It's sound like interactive command, where user always give input to system. But, it isn't interactive command, just messages.
    – bayuah
    Jan 2, 2015 at 12:19
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I know of no (substantial) difference between "notice" and "information" messages. I would suspect these terms come from different sources (like different UX guidelines, or UI frameworks) and differ only because nobody cared to think about them both.

Such messages relate information about the system state or activity to the user - progress, completion - usually things that the user expects to happen. They should simply be displayed without much fanfare.

Warnings, on the other hand, tell the user about things that might prevent the expected outcome. As such, they need some attention-grabbing design. Warnings might or might not allow the user to take corrective actions. Depending on the severity of the issue and the manual correction possibilities, warnings may result in a pop-up (confirmation dialog).

By the way, your formulation "send data through the socket. In each program action, I display a message" sounds much more like a debugging tool than a "user" interface... That's another story, I would assume.

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  • Yes, I'm also use a Debug level message for detail message action.
    – bayuah
    Jan 2, 2015 at 12:12
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Yes a notice must be at least maximum 50 words . Means a notice should never be as long as boring . it should be short and no negative points in it. Proper information and exact time and place should be maintained in a notice ..............

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