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Apple should steal this genius iOS notifications design before Android does

Published Nov 14th, 2017 5:53PM EST
iPhone iOS 11 Notifications
Image: Zach Epstein for BGR

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iPhone notifications, am I right? They can be very annoying and messy at times, even though Apple has taken big steps to improve the notifications experience on its iOS devices.

Designers have also tried to “fix” iOS problems in recent years. We’ve seen a plethora of iOS concepts before, each one proposing various user interface changes and improvements, including new ideas for notification management. But the following concept is one of the best ones I’ve ever seen, solely for the fact that the person behind it did more than actually draw a new UI for iPhone notifications.

Designer Kauhi Hookano posted on Behance a thorough presentation of his iOS Notification Redesign project.

What’s impressive about it is that he actually identified iOS notifications problems, and created working concepts for users to test out. He then formulated solutions for the issues he wanted to fix.

Hookano focused on three main problems: banner notifications sometimes hide important content at the top of the screen, the notification center can be a chaotic mess, clearing notifications en-masse may result into the unwanted deletion of certain items.

He then proceeded to propose solutions to fix notifications.

Here’s how he thinks iOS should handle notifications when “Do Not Disturb” mode is enabled, or when an app is in use:

Image source: Behance

And this is how notifications can be grouped by application on the lock screen:

Image source: Behance

When the screen is unlocked, an orange dot next to the time would indicate that new notifications are available:

Image source: Behance

The user would be able to delete notifications, but then restore some of the important ones, if needed:

Image source: Behance

Finally, the designer proposes Siri-powered smart notifications that would provide automatic notifications to the user based on his or her usage of the iPhone:

Image source: Behance

The full guide is available at this link, complete with more images and video. And while it was published in August, well ahead of the iPhone X launch and the final release of iOS 11, the ideas Hookano proposes are definitely interesting. Who knows, maybe iOS 12 may bring us an even better notification experience on iPhone.

Chris Smith Senior Writer

Chris Smith has been covering consumer electronics ever since the iPhone revolutionized the industry in 2008. When he’s not writing about the most recent tech news for BGR, he brings his entertainment expertise to Marvel’s Cinematic Universe and other blockbuster franchises.

Outside of work, you’ll catch him streaming almost every new movie and TV show release as soon as it's available.