When an application is not in the foreground, a message notification can inform the user of certain information in a timely manner. For example, receive new messages, receive new messages, program downloads are complete, or to-do items are about to begin. At present, the design of the message notice on each mobile platform is different, each has its own advantages and disadvantages. Here's how the five systems of iOS, Android, Palm Web OS, Windows phone, and the Meego are handled, and their pros and cons are analyzed. Hope to be able to be helpful to the design choice in the research and development process. In addition, the main analysis here is the hint form of notification, does not involve local and push two kinds of notification logic.
IOS Notification
iOS has two forms of message notification, Badge Notification and alert Notification.
Badge notification refers to the red circular digital reminder that appears in the upper-right corner of the application icon to remind you of messages that don't need to be processed immediately, such as the number of program updates, unread messages, and so on. Badge notification can only be seen on the corresponding screen on home screens, so it is not suitable for reminders of high importance or need to be processed in a timely manner. Also, the shape color of the badge notification is default and cannot be changed.
Alert notification is very straightforward to appear on the screen in the form of a dialog window for important or timely notifications. However, alert notification often rudely interrupts the task in progress, forcing the user to make a choice immediately, and not being able to summarize all the notifications, and when there are multiple notifications, they cannot be processed selectively, and can only be processed one at a time in the order provided.
Android Notification
There are three types of message notifications for Android, Toast Notification, Status Bar Notification, and dialog Notification.
Toast notification refers to a temporary notice that appears on the screen, which is used to convey some type of message, and will automatically disappear after a short stay without user interaction. For example, tell the download has been completed. (Toast noification This argument is originally originated from a former MSN employee's reference, because the MSN message reminder is from the bottom up light bombs, form very much like a bread from the toaster shot, so called Toast noification. ）
Status bar notification is a notification that appears as an icon or as a scroll bar text on the top status bar of the system. This approach is appropriate when the application is in the background running state. The benefit of this form of notification is that you can pick and choose from the top of your subordinates, even if you are concerned, without interrupting your current task.
Dialog Notification is similar to the iOS alert Notification, appearing on the screen as a dialog window for important or timely notifications.
Palm Web OS Notification
There are two forms of message notifications for Palm Web OS, Banner Notification and pop-up Notification.
When notified, Palm will appear at the bottom of the interface with a notification bar for hosting notifications. What appears on this notice bar is called Banner Notification. Personally feel that Palm's banner notification is a perfect way to handle message notifications. First of all, it can focus on both the home and the app interface, not messing with the task in progress, and then the notification bar can be extended after clicking to show the notification in the form of a summary (Dashboard Summary) In addition, compared with Android, the notification bar will be independent of the status bar to make the notification more visible (the Android status bar on the state of the information and notification information is sometimes more insensitive, after all, to recognize from a bunch of status icons in the notification icon, it is also a cost-aware costs).
Like pop-up Notification and alert Notification (IOS), Dialog Notification (Android), the difference is that the way it appears is to squeeze up from the bottom of the screen, rather than appearing in the middle of the screen.
Windows Phone Notification
There are three types of message notifications for Windows phone, Tile Notification, Toast Notification, and Raw Notification.
WP7 's main screen is full of applications more like a block of square tiles, as the name suggests tile notification is what appears in these "tiles" on the notice, such as the main screen on the weather on the app on the temperature changes appear when the notice. By changing the three elements on the tile (title, Backgroud and hint) to achieve the purpose of the reminder, compared with iOS badge notification, in addition to digital reminders, there are more changes tile background and title two ways.
Toast notification above has been explained, just WP7 Toast notification appear in the top of the screen, and screen, such as wide, stay about 10 seconds after automatically disappear.
Raw notification is a system native notification that passes messages directly to the application, allowing the line application to update the user interface in real time while it is running.
Meego Notification
Meego has not yet been fully unveiled, but from Meego's "Design Guidelines" you can see the following description: "The main use of the status bar are to show signal strength, time, and Battery life (operator optional). In addition, it supports notifications. This bar is removed in specific cases. "You can guess that Meego message notifications may also coexist on status bars, similar to Android.
Summary of the above collation, iOS notice often interrupted task, harassment is more serious; Android's top status notification bar effectively solves the problem of harassment and selectivity, but the entire status bar is often clouded with icons that are slightly inconvenient to distinguish; Palm's banner Notification is a relatively perfect solution, and WP7 's tile notification is more intuitive and better than its own home screen.
