173
Don't write error messages blaming the user. There is no actual benefit to you from doing this.
In the event that someone accidentally triggers these error messages, you damage your relationship with them. Even if you do manage to tell a single malicious user that you know they're malicious, it isn't going to make them like you any better.
All you're ...
150
Tickers are like carousels, but worse.
Since you're asking for disadvantages, tickers are an antipattern because:
The content is unpredictable for users. Users don't know how large the content is, what order it appears in, where it starts or ends, and how long it will take to read all of it.
It either scrolls too slow or too fast. If a reader is focused ...
120
Mostly it’s crying wolf. Ninety-nine percent of the time the user selects the command, that’s exactly what they mean to do, so they very quickly get in the habit of smacking the OK button without more than a glance at the message. Designers don’t help the situation often providing vague, incomplete, or jargony messages, so that if users do take the time to ...
91
In situations where consequences may be truly disastrous you may copy this idea from github:
Dangerous actions are marked (red bar in background), user is forced to read this box and it is verified as simply punching button is not enough. Note that using it for anything less than "nuke big collection of data" used once a year will result in furious users.
57
Let them know what has happened. Here are some situations with longer, clear example notifications that use proper English grammar:
Only the name changed
The task "foobar" has been successfully renamed to "dummy".
Only the data changed
The task "foobar" has been successfully updated.
The name and the data changed
The task "foobar" has been ...
52
This is just my opinion, but it's an answer.
Tickers, or marquees, where you see them, tend to inhabit small spaces. Whether that's across the front of a cinema, the back of a police car or on a train station sign.
In the real world they offer an advantage in that they can display more information than the display can statically display, but in a smaller, ...
34
To the question of:
How do I keep the user aware of important events without inundating them?
Make sure your updates are meaningful.
UAC, TOS', and EULA's are constantly skipped over because they don't provide meaningful content to their user. UAC, for many, is simply annoying - users feel that they shouldn't be warned every time they want to do ...
31
Jakob Nielsen’s F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content references an important tendency of users when reading websites:
Users first read in a horizontal movement, usually across the upper
part of the content area. This initial element forms the F's top bar.
You want your user to see the notification, so the top area of the page within that top bar of ...
30
Let me post an answer contrary to existing ones. A "login successful" message is not just unnecessary but it's also wrong.
Why Unnecessary
Think if objects/devices you use in everyday life will give you feedback each time you use them: "OK, you're using right key, you can turn the car's engine on", "Welcome back Adriano, this is your house", "Your PIN is ...
28
Put on a song that you know, and have someone hit pause and play at random times, then have them randomly turn the volume up and down.
Lowering the volume, rather than pausing the music, is less disruptive to the user. Your brain can fill in the gaps in music they are listening to if they are even somewhat familiar with it (it's why people can listen to ...
27
The first thing you have to find out is, if it's really a troll. Your Contact Form and Feedback Form examples have nothing to do with trolls. It's just a feedback message. The third example sounds like a hacker or script kiddie who's trying something, also no troll.
So for the first two examples, choose a error message that tells what to do, but does not ...
27
Did you consider the Facebook approach?
Facebook shows all new notifications under one label that shows the amount of new notifications as a number: "34 new notifications", the red label on the globe icon.
As soon as users CLICK the globe, users get to see all of the new notifications, while previous ones are also shown, with the difference of being a ...
25
How about pushing the development team to use some logic?
Based on the selected records - let them switch the string of feedback message. For instance, if the user selects only one record to delete, the system should understand it and show a message as 'The message has been deleted'.
If the user selects multiple records to delete, the system should show ...
22
It varies, but for English language...
Generally the time taken to read a flash notice will vary according to the complexity of the information, length of notice, and focus/distraction level of the user.
That said, I tend to use the following informed approach:
1. Flash notices should be short
If a notice is longer than about 1.5 lines, it likely too ...
22
Good, practical question. In my experience with working on a booking platform recently, we touched/worked on this. More thoughts:
Why this is probably done: To ensure that the notification reaches the user through some channel or other. There could be cases where a few users ignore SMSs, or a few others do not check emails regularly. Hence, multiple ...
22
I honestly do not think that this is a UI issue but it has rather evolved into a trust issue. All things considered, you clearly have a good UI because new people are actively checking their notifications.
I am not sure how long your product has been providing meaningless alerts but it was apparently long enough that people are still bitter about the ...
21
We might want to distinct between several types of messages that got confused here:
feedback messages in response to user actions, e.g. "form saved"
unprovoked events, e.g. "new e-mail", "license expired", etc.
system status, e.g. "idle", "processing", "process complete", etc.
Each of these have ...
21
Scrolling text can be a barrier to accessibility, so much so that WCAG requires that you provide a control that allows the user to pause, stop, or hide the moving content (SC 2.2.2 Pause, Stop, Hide).
Content that moves or auto-updates can be a barrier to anyone who has
trouble reading stationary text quickly as well as anyone who has
trouble tracking ...
18
I spent some time exploring how other sites deal with downloads, and liked how Google Drive handles them.
Here is a screen shot of two downloads simultaneously happening on Google Drive:
What I like about this method:
While this message box is similar to the Toast idea mentioned in Idea 5, the box is positioned on the bottom of the page, rather than the ...
17
Quick Answer
In your case that color scheme is NOT safe for colorblind people. First of all don't forget that there are different types of color vision deficiency. Let's summarize why your image is not safe (to reproduce this just pick two different on-line color blindness simulators):
Achromatopsia: they see only shades of gray then obviously all boxes ...
14
I would suggest using a standardised notification at the top of every page. That way you can show any notification you like, or nothing (most of the time). It has become widely used, and you can design it to be very noticeable if you wish.
Some examples:
14
As a corollary to both @tohster and @Matt Obee's very nice answers, there is an additional consideration:
Tickers remove control from the person viewing the information
Someone who is trying to read content that is presented as a static list can scroll up or down at their own leisure, and are actively engaged in that act. Tickers force whoever is viewing ...
13
You can't plant a tree in Australia while in France.
What you are asking here is the same as asking:
I have two rooms on two different floors; Only one room has a telephone installed; How can I make the telephone ring in the other room.
In other words:
A web app functionality is limited to the scope in which it is implemented (the browser). You have no ...
13
In some cases the best way to warn the user about dangerous actions is to... not warn them at all. Just do it, and notify them clearly and concisely what just happened. But then add an undo button, Gmail-style. Actually I lied, you don't want to "just do it", you want to appear to do it and delay the actual action until it's clear the user doesn't want to ...
12
Notify the user inside the app, but try to avoid interrupting their workflow.
The Nielsen Norman Group did a study on mobile intranets that touched on this topic. They gave seven strategies that help avoid errors and improve productivity for mission-critical applications. From the article:
"Recognize that, even for the most proficient practitioners, ...
12
There's a third option similar to the one used on this page: the message tray icon that is only activated when it has some content with the corresponding number.
Advantage:
The message tray can contain any type of message or alert: not just a type but any
It doesn't disappear when there is no any alert, it simply occupies the same place, it's a way of ...
11
(I edited the answer for the sake of clarity)
Re-reading your question, it seems you are more after a way to classify messages in categories like Status, Warning and Error. To me those cannot be classified automatically, because knowledge of the business case is necessary to do so. You can maintain a matrix of classification that you will enrich over time.
...
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