2.22 Provide Useful Notifications To Improve The Visitor's Journey

2.22 Provide Useful Notifications To Improve The Visitor’s Journey

Notifications whether through the browser or messaging can be potentially useful, but only used in moderation. Spam and the lack of control are contributing sources of Internet emissions and as such, businesses should aim to reduce such actions.

Criteria

Notification Justification: Remove non-essential notifications while justifying and reducing the practice of e-mailing or text messaging to what is strictly necessary. Useful notifications (such as alerts for new content) should be used with care and restraint.
Notification Control: Let the visitor control notifications (for example through the browser, SMS, or by email) and adjust messaging preferences, and the option to unsubscribe, logout, and close an account should be available and visible.
Prompts And Responses: Clearly explain the result of a potential input through helpful prompts and messages that explain errors, next steps, and so on. This will help manage their expectations.

Impact

Low

Effort

Low

Benefits

Environmental:
Notifications that can inform visitors about important events can help them avoid having to constantly refresh pages, as such they act as a shortcut to only loading information when the information becomes available, leading to emission savings.
Privacy:
If used appropriately, notifications can provide personalized content to specific devices, which reduces the risk of information exposure.
Accessibility:
Being able to signpost individuals to information through helpful notifications or error messages will have a beneficial effect of avoiding visitor abandonment. It’s especially essential to ensure that all information is presented so that such critical information doesn’t discriminate based on an individual’s abilities, as you could exclude a massive part of your audience.

GRI

materials: Medium
energy: Low
water: Medium
emissions: Low

Example

Code:

<form>
	<label for="choose">Would you prefer a banana or cherry? (required)</label>
	<input id="choose" name="i-like" required />
	<button>Submit</button>
</form>

Client-side form validation.

Resources

View the Guideline