Notifications must be used in the right way in order to positively affect your app. It triggers various reactions from users. Many of them find notifications useful but many are also bothered by it. But remember, notifications are not just numbers on your app’s logo, they are much more than that. They are tools that can inform users of the app when it crashes, brief people about new updates and feature, and alert them on recent activity such as new activity and mail from people they know.
Notifications are opposing a great user experience or UX. In this article, we will show you how you can create your notification to become beneficial and effective.
What are Notifications?
Notification is an alert or message of delivering something to the attention of the app user. The notification is also a innovative feature where the user can be informed without entering his or her app.
What are the Key Elements of User-Friendly Notifications?
Notifications are an opportunity for building relationships with users because users place their trust in your app to allow you to send messages directly to them. User-centric notifications are the building blocks of a great mobile marketing plan. However, producing the perfect notification for your app is not easy at all.
Here are five tips to help you in crafting a user-centric notification.
1. Make it Relevant and Appropriate
Using all-time favorite user data analysis is the best practice to be relevant with notifications to the users. The behavior stats of the user are the best predictors of relevance. When making notifications, you can also pay attention to product usage report and other data from your target audience. With these tips, you can increase conversion rates by making relevant notifications for potential users.
Making the notifications timely is also a necessary factor, which means you need to know when to send notifications to the users. Also, with regards to the times, they would ignore it if it comes at a “dead” time. User stats are a great source of data because it contains data on the users’ time zones and the most frequent time they open your app.
2. Produce a Non-Interfering Notification
Even though that the notification should be a timely alert, it can still distract the user. Hence, the main specification of a notification is that it should be non-interfering to the user. At the same time, it should still fulfill its purpose of informing the user that something important is on its way.
3. Ensure Clarity in Message
The content of the notifications should be relatable and fit to the language used by your audience. Make sure that the message is easy to understand and straight to the point. Do not try to use ‘you have won’ and ‘100% free’ in your content because these look like spam messages and gives doubt to the minds of the customers.
The message to be crafted should be clear and effective. Make the content as pleasing as possible to avoid annoyed users. Notifications are a useful tool in communication to your users, so you must stick to your brand persona and writing styles, and at the same time, be unique with the messages, do not make it look like a template.
4. Never Resend Notifications
Once is enough. Once you’ve sent one push notification, that’s the last. Don’t send the same message again to try if the results will become better. You must take into consideration the users that are annoyed when sent duplicate notifications. You will be in awe at how many apps are re-sending notifications.
If re-engaging via push notification is your issue, you must create different messages to send that means different things in different ways. This is a unique way of checking up on your users and increasing the success rate of your app. If the user did not engage after that, then it is not your fault anymore.
5. Converse with Great Copy
You need to utilize different techniques in writing copies to help engage your users. You may use a mix of questions, statements, and emojis to help make your notification look more personalized and real. In picking different techniques, you need to study your audiences on what kind of writing style appeals to them the most.
Among any web-based interface, a great copy can pique the attention of the users and spark a meaningful engagement. You should never neglect your brand personality in the notifications. If your user connects with you in a light way, you can give the same emotion as well.
Most of the push notifications are received in a way that looks and feels like a personalized message to the users. Utilize that to your advantage to create a relationship with your users. You should also use the language that fits your users.
Push notifications should be never be overlooked when developing your app’s user experience. A poorly executed one can annoy users and give a bad impression to them but a well-thought-out one can be useful and can increase the user engagement with your app.
Kenneth Sytian is a website developer in the Philippines, the CEO of Sytian Productions. He has been designing websites and developing web apps for more than a decade. He is considered as one of the top influencers in web design and development in the Philippines.
This is awesome. Thanks for sharing the good information.