Problem:
When a user receives a message on their Talk page, they will ideally receive a notification in their system notification bar at the top. However, there are various reasons that this type of notification might get missed by the user, including a) Disabling notifications from certain apps, including ours, b) Accidentally swiping away the notification without reading it, and c) Glitches in our push notification infrastructure that would prevent the notification from arriving at the user's device.
Solution:
If the user has a new message, it would be extremely beneficial to inform them about it within the app itself, i.e. while reading an article. This can be in the form of a persistent tooltip, or a similar attention-grabbing element that guides the user to view the notification.
Conceptual notes:
- Bring the tab icon closer to the search in the article view because it’s thematically related
- Global elements in the app bar (tabs, notifications) should be positioned rightmost, contextual elements in the view should be positioned right next to it, like this:
- Article view:: Tab icon, Bell icon, More icon
- Explore: Tab icon, Bell icon
- Saved: Filter icon, Tab icon, Bell icon, More icon
- Search: Tab icon, Bell icon
- Edits: (no changes)
- User talk: Language icon, Bell icon, More icon
- Watchlist: Language icon, Bell icon
Initial thoughts:
We could add a "Notifications..." menu item to the overflow menu while reading an article (or to the bottom button bar). When there's a new notification, we can display a tooltip that points to the overflow menu, and then show a blue dot next to the "Notifications" item. Also, in the tooltip itself we can have a button that takes the user directly to the Notification activity, or even directly to the user's Talk page.
