Last Updated on October 17, 2021 by Mathew Diekhake
One of the features that made Windows 10 a superior operating system was its built-in notification capabilities; however, fine-tuning the notification experience has been difficult: some people found themselves completely bombarded with them which causes far too many distractions.
Microsoft has understood this and will be rolling out some features that allow you to get the notifications you need from the essential sites while receiving the rest more quietly. Having varying offerings of notifications is something we’ve seen implemented on YouTube rather successfully, so there should be no reason operating systems can’t soon follow suit.
Notifications Will Soon Begin to Run in the Background
The way in which a website such as YouTube gets your notifications to already be available for you to see every time you open their website is the notifications run in the background. To date, Microsoft Edge hasn’t had this luxury which causes you to see a bevy of notifications all arriving at once once you reopened the browser again. Those notifications were all the ones you had received since last having the browser open. Microsoft has recognized this as being an inferior user experience on their behalf and will make the change so that your browser can collect notifications in the background. This means you’ll still see your notifications, but they will have already arrived so you don’t have to witness them arrive.
Badges for PWAs and Pinned Sites
One of the ways operating systems and web browsers have given efficient and yet effective notifications in the past is with badge notifications, which are small notifications on top of an icon which typically displays a number and that number is the number of notifications which you haven’t yet seen. Badge icons are a more concise substitute for toast notifications, which would show at least some text as a headline along with the notification. These badge notifications are continuing but also expanding to include Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and pinned websites. This will help expand the badge notification experience to all Windows 10 users.
Support for badge notifications on Progressive Web Apps has been around since Microsoft Edge 81, but it was limited to only being shown on the taskbar when the PWA was open. With the most recent version of Edge, you can now see those notifications on the taskbar at all times.
The support for background notifications and more reliable badge notifications that also include pinned sites means more people are being included in a considerably more advanced Edge experience, which should help collect more users away from Chrome.
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September 2, 2024 @ 02:51
I’m not a massive fan of giving people the power over what operating system Microsoft is going to provide moving forward.
I know there has been a big shift in this direction from all tech companies in general. They say what they want to do is provide the best stuff but then instead of doing what is best, they do what average people tell them to do.
On the positive side, hopefully, they just listen to the ideas that are good and still apply the logic of a technology professional as a layer over the top. I think that could be the best way to go about it because there is upside in learning what average people are doing with their operating systems at least.
I just realized that this shift might have something to do with people not allowing Microsoft to ‘snoop’ on their computers to see what they’re doing. I think the only way for Microsoft to know what people are doing these days is to actually get feedback from them.
September 2, 2024 @ 02:50
The paragraph in this article about advertising is a good example of how you don’t want to listen to average people who have no experience within an industry.
Ad tracking is just machine learning to be able to give people a better user experience, not a worse user experience. Without ad tracking, you will never see any ads of relevance. I see shopping sales all the time online thanks to these trackers and I often click them to pick up a very cheap shoe, t-shirt and so on. Additionally, no ad tracking obviously has huge consequences for website owners.
And then she finishes off by just saying she agrees with the general audience which is either a lie or an uneducated opinion.
When I’m on social media and I get an irrelevant advert in my feed, I get mad and report it. How dare they show me something that I have no interest in. You can’t have it both ways.