Notifications are fascinating. We are all love to get notified. Alarms, emails, meetings… Later came social notifications such as likes, discussion comments and others. Enterprise systems are sending notifications about process states and many others.
Recent Apple WWDC presentation provided a snapshot about next evolution point of OS/X notifications. When iOS 8 hits, the notification center can easy become a center of universe for your iPhone. The same happens on Android device- notification screen is pretty much in focus of everything.
Wired article Why Notifications Are About to Rule the Smartphone Interface? provides an interesting insight on how notification functionality will developed and what is means for end users. Here is my favorite passage:
Interactive notifications will spur all sorts of new behaviors. (And yes, Android already has interactive notifications, but the ones in iOS 8 look to go beyond what KitKat can do.) Some of these will be simple, like the ability to reply to an email or text message. But they’re powerful in that you can do this without quitting whatever you’re already doing. And this interactivity is not just limited to system apps. Third-party developers can take advantage of this new capability as well, so you could comment on something on Facebook, respond to a tweet, or even check in on Foursquare. But others are going to be radical, stuff we haven’t imagined yet. Once developers begin to really harness what interactive notifications can do in iOS 8—and they will—it’s going to cause one of the most radical changes since third-party apps. With the advent of iOS 8, notifications are the new interface frontier.
It made me think, there is an opportunity for process management tools to leverage notification center ideas as well as use this spot for better experience PLM systems can provide. In most of the implementation, I’ve been involved, PLM systems are using email to get people involved into the communication about changes and process notification. Recently, instant messengers (IM) and live chats came to that place as well. New type of notification system can come to combine all aspects of communication into single interconnected experience. There is one more aspect. The ability of process management tools to capture existing notifications. It can be an interesting opportunity to simplify process planning for organizations.
What is my conclusion? Communication brings a lot of noise and inefficiency. This is a problem we have everywhere. On the other side, process is all about how to get people to perform in the most possible efficient way. It seems to me the new notion of notification can provide some alternative to old email exchange and buzzzzzes of alerts. UX architects and PLM technologiests should take a note. Just my thoughts…
Best, Oleg
