What’s the difference between an alert and a notification?
Alerts and notifications are used in many mobile and web apps, but the terminology can be tricky.
In simple terms, alerts convey important information to the user, usually something time-sensitive that the user needs to take action on. Alerts are commonly sent to the user in context to what they’re doing on the app.
On the other hand, notifications convey information that the user may not have to take any action on. Apps may send these notifications at different times and may not necessarily be linked to what they’re doing at the moment.
Over the years I’ve found that working on products that use both can sometimes lead to confusion for stakeholders, development teams, and even end users. When designing a new product, understanding the nuanced differences can help you determine which one is right for you.
Differences between alerts and notifications
Here are the key differences between alerts and notifications
Alerts:
- Need more immediate action from the user
- Usually sent while using the app
- An alert tries to get quick attention from the user and prompts immediate action from the user.
- For example, an on-screen message showing that you have entered an incorrect username or password is an alert.
Notifications:
- Sent to let the user know a piece of information
- Doesn’t typically need immediate action from the user
- Notifications are sent at any time; even if the app is not in use.
- Notifications are less important and designed in a way so as to not interrupt whatever the user is doing at the moment.
- For example, Instagram or other social media apps may send notifications to let you know someone has engaged with your post.
Now let’s get into detail about the differences between alerts and notifications.
What are app alerts?
One of the most common places that I see alerts is on monitoring dashboards. Imagine a scenario where you’re looking at a screen with many different data points represented.
Suddenly, one area of the screen turns red or a warning icon appears. You’ve just gotten an alert.
Alerts typically happen within the context of a user’s immediate activity: what they’re doing right now. Often, they’re triggered when a user takes an action – or in the case of monitoring dashboards, they could be triggered by data input. Alerts point the user directly to where the problem is and say, “Hey, look over here!”
Alerts may behave differently in different scenarios. For example, a low-impact alert may disappear after a certain time period. A high-impact alert may require acknowledgment by the user. Some types of alerts may have different colors or icons to show different severity levels. Other types can be closed by users.
Here are some other examples of alerts:
- A user enters incorrect information into a field and is notified on screen that they need to make a change
- A banner lets the user know that WiFi is down and the application can’t save data
- A user assigned something to another user, and an on-screen validation message appears
- A modal pops up letting a user know that a problem with the system prevented data from being processed
- On-screen alert that the username or password entered is incorrect
What are app notifications?
A notification notifies the user that something has happened and usually gives information about what happened. It may not happen in the context of the user’s current task.
You’re probably familiar with notifications – I bet you get them all the time. Notifications let users know that something has happened, but not necessarily within the context of what the user is doing. If you’re at the library and your phone buzzes to let you know that someone liked your latest Instagram post, you’ve just gotten a notification.
There are a lot of different ways that notifications can happen. Here are a few examples:
- You’re at the gym. A push notification in the status bar of your phone shows you that someone liked your Facebook post
- You’re writing a blog post. An email from LinkedIn lets you know that someone wants to connect with you
- You’re browsing Twitter. A text message from your favorite restaurant lets you know that your take-out order is ready
- You’re writing an email. A notification on your MacBook lets you know that someone has messaged you in Slack
As you can see, a key differentiator between alerts and notifications is that notifications happen when you’re not necessarily actively using the app.
Examples of alerts vs notifications in user interfaces
Most apps use alerts and notifications in different contexts. For instance, if someone invites you to an online meeting through Google Calendar, it will notify you through an email.
But it may also send you an alert 30 minutes (depending on how it’s set up) before the meeting asking you to join it.
One of the best examples that showcase the difference between alerts and notifications are the ones from Netflix. When Netflix sends you emails telling you about new shows, that’s an email notification.
But when it sends an email saying that someone else has logged into your account, that’s an email alert. That requires immediate action from the user in case someone else has unauthorized access to your account.
Apps may also send notifications and alerts in the form of messages as well. One of the best examples of message alerts is when apps send OTPs to sign in or authenticate the user or when banking apps send alerts about transactions on your account.
Notifications include all the messages you may get from apps letting you know about sales and promotions.
Mobile apps may also send you notifications to let you know about messages in your inbox, your online shopping cart, or sales and promotions.
They use alerts when you have entered the wrong password or when there’s an error with what you’re trying to do. In the below alert, an app for a connected car is telling the user they cannot try to lock the car more than once in three seconds.
On iOS, alerts may look like this:
While a notification may look like this:
Notifications and alerts are not limited to mobile apps. Alerts are used all the time on browsers to show incorrect username or passwords.
Using alerts & notifications together
The SoundSafe app designed by LunarLab uses alerts and notifications together. This app lets users know about sounds in their environment (which helps hard-of-hearing and deaf users interact with the world more comfortably). Users can determine which sounds should trigger an alert, which will appear on the screen when the user has the app open. This could be for any type of sound: from critically important sounds like a smoke alarm to the microwave beeping.
Sometimes, a user may be doing another activity outside the app, or the alert is such a high priority that it requires an external notification to let the user know something is happening. In those cases, the user can choose to get a notification when something is serious.
In the image below, the screen on the left shows an alert that the user might see right within the app letting them know about a carbon monoxide detector going off. The screen on the right shows what happens if the user is not using their phone: a notification appears on the lock screen letting the user know about the problem (this is accompanied by a vibration on the phone).
Which one do I need in my app?
Are your users frequently in the app making changes, and need to know about certain things immediately? Is form validation really important to you? Do you want to prevent users from moving to another screen before they correct some data input or action?
Do you want to monitor for data input coming from outside of the app? Do you have different severity levels for different events? If this sounds like your app, alerts might be right for you.
On the other hand… do your users need to know about events even if they’re not in the app?
Do events happen often outside of times when users are in the app? Do you have emergency contacts that need to be notified, who might not even use the app? Do you have low-impact events that you want to tell users about, but don’t require immediate action? If this sounds like you, then notifications might be the best route.
If you’ve got an app idea and want to chat about whether alerts or notifications (or a combination) are the right choice for you, give us a shout! We’d love to help you get started.
