Firefox/Projects/Doorhanger notifications

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The goal is to redesign notifications to address various issues with them and provide a unified action/notification area for them.

Issues with current notification bars

• Pushes content down
• Hangs around on the same domain
• Visual distraction
• Once dismissed, they cannot reappear
• Cannot show multiple notifications at once
• Spoofing is possible since notification bar appears within the content so it can be faked
• Action taken on a bar cannot easily be canceled/undone

Design

A new actions button will provide access to all of the notifications. The notifications will drop down from it. Following the notifications, static actions will follow after a separator.

Each notification will have:

• a large icon on the left
• a question
• a button for affirmative action

Non-critical notifications will be dismissed (fade out) when focus is lost. If multiple notifications occur at once, they will overlap.

Notification Uses

Examples taken from existing notification bars and dialogs:

• Password manager
• Popup blocker
• Offline storage
• Geolocation
• Firefox updates
• Extension updates
• ...

Static Actions

Possible static actions:

• Default Options
  • Save
  • Print
• Extension examples
  • Share
  • Tweet
  • Inspect

References

• http://blog.mozilla.com/faaborg/2007/03/06/would-you-like-to-redesign-notification-in-firefox-yes-not-now-never/