Notifications

Secondary Research: Notifications Preliminary research on latest design approaches and best practices for Mobile notification & feedback systems By: Maura Robinson

Mobile Notifications Notification apathy arose from a misunderstanding of the role of notifications in mobile usage behavior. Notifications should be used as a news channel that alerts the user to important events as they happen or a log that chronicles events while the user is not paying attention—and one that is synced as appropriate across all their mobile devices. This report gives an overview of the main types of mobile notifications, three use cases that describe common interaction with notifications, and the top best practices and latest design trends to enable a best in class notification design.

Summary of Research Types of Mobile Notifications

Overarching types ● Push ○ Push notifications let your application notify a user of new messages or events even when the user is not actively using your application. ● Snackbar ○ Snackbars provide lightweight feedback about an operation by showing a brief message at the bottom of the screen. ● Toast ○ A toast notification is a transient message to the user that contains relevant, time-sensitive information and provides quick access to related content in an app.

IOS ● An on screen banner ● An on screen alert ● A badge on the app’s icon ● A custom or system-provided sound can accompany any of the other three notification types.

Andriod ● Heads up Notifications ● Single Event Notifications ● System Bar Notifications ● LED Pulse & Vibration Notifications can accompany any of the other three notification types.

Three Common Use Cases for Mobile Notifications 1. User-generated notifications These notifications contain content created by a human using the app to other humans.

2. Context-generated notifications These notifications are generated by an application based on the permission of its users 3. System-generated notifications These notifications are generated by an app based on the needs of the app.

16 Best Practices for Mobile Notifications: 1. Importance The biggest problem with many app notifications is that the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost—the information they offer isn’t worth pulling the user’s attention at that moment.

2. Frequency Most mobile devices today have tens, or even hundreds, of apps installed. With all of those apps, push notification frequency can get overwhelming. Applications with the highest frequency of irrelevant push notifications are the first applications to get un-installed.

3. Relevance and Timeliness Notify users at times when they are the least likely to ignore it. The goal is to deliver the right information to users at the exact time when they need it.

4. Customization: Let users control the notification This doesn’t necessarily mean letting users turn off all notification types (though that’s an option every user would love to have), but rather sharing the responsibility for notification content with users. When users select which alerts to receive and which not, they will be much happier seeing notifications of their choosing.

5. Clear and Concise Message Don’t frustrate users with the wording of the alert message. Keep it short, clear and easily understood.

6. Effective Delivery Method Knowing which notification type and delivery method is better perceived by users is a key to improving the overall notification UX of any application. Understand the significance and usage of the message and set the appropriate priority level and notification type.

7. Develop a push cadence

If you routinely and positively communicate with your users via push over time, they will come to associate positive experiences with your messages.

8. Create custom opt-in prompts Instead of ambushing your users with a permission request when they open the app for the first time, explain the benefits of your push messages and THEN ask for permission.

9. Establish a sunset policy Create a sunset policy that eventually stops sending push notifications to users who haven't had a direct or influenced open for a long period of time, to reduce the number of uninstalls.

10. Track the conversion rate When assigning a conversion event to a push campaign, you'll have the option to track app opens for a certain period after the campaign is received.

11. Stay consistent in Voice, Tone and Appearance Consistent communications over time is a key element in building a strong app experience.

Ensure that the notifications are grammatically and match the brand.

12. Use Contextual Messages Good notifications should be smart enough to adapt to your user’s current situation, including their ever-changing locations.

13. Use custom push sounds to make your app recognizable Use custom push sounds to notify the users of particular alerts. This feature works better for promotional apps that don’t send a ton of push notifications and can become annoying when inappropriately or overly us 14. Use badge counts The badge count feature displays the number of notifications that have been unread within your application directly on the icon on the screen of any iOS device. For your basic to-do list application, the badge count can show the number of upcoming or immediate items that need attention. Does your app have a chat feature? Show the number of unread messages in your application easily with a badge count and keep your users coming back to chat often.

15. Know your users and Be personable Sometimes it’s okay to take a break from business and let your customers know your company is not a robotic money-making machine. During the holiday season or on birthdays send a simple, “Happy Thanksgiving from Parse,” or “Happy Birthday. You’re Awesome,” instead of, “Save 15% on everything today only.” People will appreciate the friendly note and your app could see increased traffic without using a pitch.

16.​ Best Practice​ ​ s​ for Snackbars & Toasts

Types of Mobile Notifications ● Overarching types ● IOS ● Andriod

Overarching Types of Mobile Notifications

Push Notifications

Push notifications let your application notify a user of new messages or events even when the user is not actively using your application. On Android devices, when a device receives a push notification, your application's icon and a message appear in the status bar. When the user taps the notification, they are sent to your application. Notifications can be broadcast to all users, such as for a marketing campaign, or sent to just a subset of users, to give personalized information.

The are four classes of push notification:

1) Broadcast: One notification for everybody. Broadcast notifications have a 2% engagement rate. Or put another way, 98% of them are ignored. Newsstand apps are the standout offenders. Repeat offence leads to deletion. It’s akin to bulk mailing.

2) Personal: The notification is only for you, and human initiated. They range from @whatsapp/snapchat/… messages, to @mentions, to @follows, to @likes, to [____]. They have a very high read rate…though not necessarily an equally high open rate. The notification alone can suffice.

3) Contextual: Notifications that are contextual to app use; contextual to the many senses available to the app – location, beacons, health, ’things’; or contextual to the many services that connect through the app (weather, sports scores).

4) Transactional: Machine generated messages intended just for you, and (hopefully) valuable you. Increasing apps and notifications will take over the jobs email, sms and call centers do today. “Your flight is delayed. Your card has just been used online, Your account has just been accessed. Your free trial is ending.

Snackbar Notifications

Snackbars provide lightweight feedback about an operation by showing a brief message at the bottom of the screen. Snackbars can contain an action.

Android also provides a toast, primarily used for system messaging. Toasts are similar to snackbar but do not contain actions and cannot be swiped off screen

Toast Notifications

A toast notification is a transient message to the user that contains relevant, time-sensitive information and provides quick access to related content in an app. It can appear whether you are in another app, the Start screen, the lock screen, or on the desktop. Toasts should be viewed as an invitation to return to your app to follow up on something of interest. Toast

notifications are an optional part of the app experience and are intended to be raised only when your app is not the active foreground app.

There are two types of toast notification: ● Standard toast: Most developers should use the standard toast notification. This toast remains on the screen for seven seconds, playing a brief sound to alert the user when it appears. The standard toast is best for notifications such as an IM contact sign-in, or a social media update. ● Long-duration toast: This notification looks the same as a standard toast but stays on the screen for 25 seconds and optionally can play longer, looping audio. This type of toast is used in situations where you want to grab the user's attention because there is a human waiting on the other end of the connection. This is appropriate for person-to-person communication like instant messages and VOIP calls. This type of toast can also be used for calendar reminders. ● Note Long-duration toast is not supported on Windows Phone 8.1; all toast on the phone is shown for the same amount of time

IOS Notifications: According to the iOS developer library, users can be notified in the following ways:

● An onscreen banner ● An onscreen alert ● A badge on the app’s icon ● A custom or system-provided sound can accompany any of the other three notification types.

Banner

A banner is a small translucent view that appears onscreen and then disappears after a few seconds. Users can also see a version of the banner on the lock screen and in the Notifications view of Notification Center. In the banner, iOS displays your notification message and the small version of your app icon (to learn more about the small app icon, see App Icon​ ). Users tap the banner to dismiss it and switch to the app that sent the notification.In addition to a default action that users can take by tapping a banner, you can also define two actions that are revealed when users swipe the banner. Tapping a

notification action button dismisses the banner and launches your app (possibly in the background) to handle the action.

Alert

A notification alert is a standard alert view that appears onscreen and requires user interaction to dismiss. You supply the notification message and either a default action or up to four specific actions that are revealed when users tap the Options button. You have no control over the background appearance of the alert.When users tap a default or custom action button in an alert, iOS simultaneously dismisses the alert and launches your app (possibly in the background). Tapping the Close or OK button dismisses the alert without opening your app.

Badge

A badge is a small red oval that displays the number of pending notification items (a badge appears over the upper-right corner of an app’s icon). You have no control over the size or color of the badge.

Android Notifications: The Android developer's library describes ways to alert users in the following notification types: ● ● ● ●

Heads up Notifications Single Event Notifications System Bar Notifications LED Pulse & Vibration Notifications can accompany any of the other three notification types.

Heads-up Notifications

With Android 5.0 (API level 21), notifications can appear in a small floating window (also called a heads-up notification) when the device is active (that is, the device is unlocked and its screen is on). These notifications appear similar to the compact form of your notification, except that the heads-up notification also shows action buttons. Users can act on, or dismiss, a heads-up notification without leaving the current app.

Examples of conditions that may trigger heads-up notifications include: ● The user's activity is in fullscreen mode or ● The notification has high priority and uses ringtones or vibrations Single Event Notifications

Designers can choose how much detail your app's notifications should provide. They can show the first few lines of a message or show a larger image preview. The additional information provides the user with more context, and—in some cases—may allow the user

to read a message in its entirety. The user can pinch-zoom or perform a single-finger glide to toggle between compact and expanded layouts. For single-event notifications, Android provides three expanded layout templates (text, inbox, and image) for you to use in your application.

System Bar Notifications Â

 System bar notifications are found at the top of the Android home screen are notifications by icons.They can be expanded to show their details.

LED Pulse & Vibration Notifications Notification by vibration The notification by vibration consists in making the device vibrate to warn the user.

The WLanguage proposes several functions to manage this type of notification:

VibrationStop

Stops the vibrations of the device (even if they have been triggered by another application).

VibrationTrigge

Triggers the vibrations of the device.

r Notification by switching the LED on

The notification by lighting the LED consists in switching the device LED on (or in making it blink). On some devices, you also have the ability to change the color of the LED. The WLanguage proposes several functions to manage this type of notification:

LEDSwitchO

Switches the LED (Light-Emitting Diode) of the device

n

on.

LEDSwitchOf

Switches the LED (Light-Emitting Diode) of the device

f

off.

Three Common Use Cases for Mobile Notifications

1. User-generated notifications: These notifications contain content created by a human using the app to other humans. Generally, these are the most engaging but especially so when the content they contain is private and directed to specific people. Mobile messaging is the highest volume example of this type of notification but other examples include comments / likes / favorites on posted content or @ mentions. My current favorite example of this notification is getting a new photo of my son from my wife.

2. Context-generated notifications: These notifications are generated by an application based on the permission of its users. This is the fast growing category of notifications because the amount of machine readable data mobile devices create: location, contacts, calendars, and much much more. The norms around context-generated notifications are still be worked out between developers and users. Location-based notifications currently dominate this category but other examples include information about your next meeting (time relevance) or updates about your favorite sports teams (interest relevance).

3. System-generated notifications: These notifications are generated by an app based on the needs of the app. This type of notification can usually be called re-engagement at best or spam at worst.

Sometimes these can create value for the end user like letting you know a friend has started using the app or that there is a sale on in app purchases.

Best Practices for Mobile Notifications: Tip for avoiding notification apathy 1. Importance Using notifications primarily as a way to pull users back into an app creates more noise than signal. An effective design practice is to respect the user’s time and attention, and do more with less. Before diving into the notification design process, designers should ask “do I need notifications at all?” Sometimes we design notifications for pretty much every error following the usability heuristic “Visibility of system status,” but does the user really need to know? If the notification is purely informative and doesn’t require any action for the system to recover, then maybe it’s not that important. On the other hand, in case of critical errors when the service or app performance depends on a user’s action, which may cause important data loss, notifications come in handy both for the user and the product owner.

Google Chrome crashed pages notification is a good example.The biggest problem with many app notifications is that the benefit doesn’t outweigh the cost—the information they offer isn’t worth pulling the user’s attention at that moment.

2. Frequency Most mobile devices today have tens, or even hundreds, of apps installed. With all of those apps, push notification frequency can get overwhelming. Applications with the highest frequency of irrelevant push notifications are the first applications to get un-installed. The solution is simple: don’t over do it. For social apps where people would like to be notified of someone commenting on their post or updates to a message board, notifications can be increased, but for advertising or promotional purposes, less is more. If you have multiple types of push notifications from a single app, make sure that your user can edit their push settings easily for each type of notification.

3. Relevance and Timeliness When designing notifications, pay attention to product usage data, as well as any other information you have gathered about the target audience. This will help you make notifications relevant for users, increasing chances for a conversion. Relevance also requires you to be timely and notify users at times when they are the least likely to ignore it.

Obviously, nighttime isn’t the best for delivering notifications. User stats are helpful when it comes to gathering data on what time zones users are located in and when they are more positively disposed to look at a message. Time-sensitive and location-based notifications are best sent via Push Notifications; e.g "Severe weather coming, head for a covered area" or "Flash sale starts now until Wednesday at 11:59 PM ET.�The goal is to deliver the right information to users at the exact time when they need it.

Travel search engines have revolutionized the way people find and purchase flights and hotels. Because it’s still the airlines’ job to set the prices of tickets, companies like Kayak have to package that information in a way that connects with their users better than their competitors.

By allowing users to set up flight price notifications, Kayak can then send notifications the moment the price drops. It’s genius because it’s essentially a flash sale disguised as breaking news. They understand the value users find in getting the best deals on flights as soon as possible. That’s why they can get away with sending it at 5:55 am. Though many users know they can find the same price elsewhere, Kayak was the app who actually provided them with that info. This gives them the so-called “unfair business advantage.”

4. Customization: Let users control the notifications

It’s a good idea to have customizable product features, especially when it comes to notifications.

This doesn’t necessarily mean letting users turn off all notification types (though that’s an option every user would love to have), but rather sharing the responsibility for notification content with users. When users select which alerts to receive and which not, they will be much happier seeing notifications of their choosing. If you’re just launching and don’t ​ have enough user data to rely on when designing a notification system, customization is a good option. After some time, you will see a clear pattern of which notifications are useful, relevant and timely for users and which ones need rethinking.Give players a preference center to customize your content, and they will love you for it. Let them tell you what they want, how much of it they want, and when they want to get it. It can build a stronger sense of loyalty. apps that help you silence the stuff you don’t care about and filter down to what you do. Additionally, you can create a settings page in your app that allows users to directly tell you which notifications they want to receive. For example, a news app could have subscription settings for the following: ● Breaking News ● Sports News ● Politics ● Business News When the news app wants to create a campaign targeting only users interested in Politics, they simply add the 'Subscribes to Politics' attribute filter to the segment. When set to true, only users who subscribe to notifications will receive them.

5. Clear and Concise Message No matter what the content of the notification is, make sure it speaks the same language as your users, literally and figuratively. Keep the message clear and understandable. Avoid using spammy phrases like “You have won!” or “100% FREE.” Try to keep the message concise but comprehensible. Don’t frustrate users with the wording of the alert message.

After all, notifications are another communication channel; you need to stay consistent with your brand image and message tone, while being user-friendly and creative.

“My Package” is a shipment tracking app. We get it, it’s not Angry Birds or Instagram. But sometimes the best apps do one thing and do it well. Rather than have the UPS, FedEx, USPS and DHL apps all installed on your device to track packages, My Package consolidates these tracking services into one manageable app.

In this example, we’re not blown away by the copy in the message. But they understand that shipping isn’t the most exciting topic of conversation, so they get to the point. Users want to know when any step in the process has been completed, and that’s when My Package sends the notification.Typically, on-the-go users would have to keep checking their email or the app regularly to monitor any status changes. My Package brings these updates to the user’s home screen, leaving them confident that they will be notified in real-time. More importantly, the user is likely to open the app to get more detailed information about the shipment. Simple, but effective.

6. Effective Delivery Method There are tons of alert types and delivery methods: sms, email notification, mobile app push notification, web notification, pop-up alert, etc​ . In order to manage those notifications and make a good use of them, we may need to conditionally identify two groups of notifications by interaction type: “Product-to-user notifications” and ”user-to-user notifications.”

Depending on the type of service and its goal for the user, these groups of alerts may have different priority levels. For instance, an Instagram user is likely to be more interested in knowing what photos include his or her face or new Facebook friends who’ve joined, rather than being asked to review the app. Knowing which notification type and delivery method is better perceived by users is a key to improving the overall notification UX of any application.

7. Develop a push cadence Develop a steady rate at which you communicate with your users.Push can seem invasive to an end-user if used improperly. For example, if a user received a push for the first time ever 20 days after they last used the app they're not going to be happy. They are more likely to uninstall than re-engage.If you routinely and positively communicate with your users via push over time, they will come to associate positive experiences with your messages.If you send a push 20 days since their last session they might just remember the good ol' days and come back!

8. Create custom opt-in prompts Even if you keep best practices in mind when designing and sending push messages, some users may turn them off before realizing any of the benefits that they would provide. Users may have had previous negative experiences with spammy, irrelevant push messages from other apps and now will decline any request to receive push messages from any app.

Furthermore, the legal environment surrounding electronic messaging in some locales is becoming increasingly strict. For example,​ Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation​ requires explicit consent from users to send them marketing-related messages. Other countries may make similar legislative moves, so acquiring that explicit consent from your users should be a priority. Not having a double opt-in system in place now may leave you with time-consuming migration to a compliant system in the future.

Creating an opt-in prompt that clearly lists and demonstrates the benefits of push can only help you, given the evolving attitudes of both consumers and governments toward push messaging. Instead of ambushing your users with a permission request when they open the app for the first time, explain the benefits of your push messages and THEN ask for permission.

Adding a simple pop-up to prompt user action can allow you to effectively request permission from your users more than once, if needed. Relying on iOS's permission request alone means that most users will never think twice about enabling your push messages.

For example, the Fandango app has a pop-up that states the benefits of enabling push notifications in a clear and concise manner. After recieving this notification, users have enough information to decide if they will find Fandango's pushes valuable and can act accordingly.

Another example of an app that does a great job with custom opt-in prompts is textPlus.

Upon downloading text Plus, a user receives a pop-up prompt that explains the benefits of push notifications and walks the user through the process of enabling them.

After the user clicks "Next," the user receives the real iOS push prompt. If the user doesn't enable push notifications at this stage, then he will have to enable them in Settings. textPlus makes this easier for users to do by featuring a reminder on their Inbox page.

If users click "Turn on," they are presented with detailed steps for how to enable push notifications. This removes some of the effort involved in turning on push notifications

9. Establish a sunset policy Even when you make sure to send only relevant, timely push notifications, some users may still be unresponsive to them and find them spammy. If a user shows a history of repeatedly ignoring your push notifications, it's a good idea to stop sending them pushes before they become annoyed with your app's communications or uninstall your app altogether. To do this, create a sunset policy that eventually stops sending push notifications to users who haven't had a direct or influenced open for a long period of time.

Before you stop sending push notifications to a segment of users, you should deliver one final notification that explains why they will no longer receive pushes and gives them a chance to demonstrate their interest in continued pushes by opening that notification. After the sunset policy goes into effect, use an in-app message and/ or Newsfeed card to remind these users that while they will no longer receive pushes, in-app messaging channels will continue to deliver interesting, helpful information.

Although you may be reluctant to stop sending pushes to users who originally opted in to them, keep in mind that there are other messaging channels that can more effectively reach these users, especially if they have previously ignored your pushes. If the user opens your emails, then email campaigns are a good way to reach him outside of your app. If not, then in-app messages and News Feed cards are the best way to deliver content without risking the user uninstalling your app.

10. Track the conversion rate When assigning a conversion event to a push campaign, you'll have the option to track app opens for a certain period after the campaign is received. Setting app opens as the conversion event provides different insight from the results statistics you normally receive after after a push campaign. While all push campaigns results break down a message's direct opens and opens (which include both direct and influenced opens, conversion tracking will track any type of open, whether it is direct or influenced.

In addition, by using the conversion event "opens app," you are tracking app opens that occur before the conversion deadline (for instance, 3 days). This differs from an influenced open in that the time a user has to register an influence open differs based from individual to individual, and is on each user's past engagement behavior. Good Push requires that player responses are monitored and analysed in order to finely tune their successful engagement. How many app opens occurred, how much time was spent in the app, which messages caused immediate app opens versus delayed app opens. Â

11. Stay consistent in Voice, Tone and Appearance Notification messages with typos or filled with unrelated content are unprofessional and leaves a bad image. Consistent communications over time is a key element in building a strong app experience. Designers should ensure consistency in voice, tone and appearance, and make sure the experience is consistent with the brand.

12. Use Contextual Messages When you deliver good push, the user is more likely to share with you his location, which may prove very useful in deciding when to send messages. Every user has a particular use pattern. Some might interact with the app while commuting, others during lunch breaks at work, or while at home for a couple hours after dinner.

Good push should be smart enough to adapt to your user’s current situation, including their ever-changing locations. With a change in location comes a change in context, and an opportunity to deliver something fresh and engaging through push messaging if everything else is fully considered. Geo-locating can be a powerful tool in the app experience.

Geo-locating is targeting audiences specifically based on their location and supplying them with relevant information. Using push notifications with geo-points within your app can be a very powerful tool. For example, do you have a restaurant review app where you sell advertising to restaurants? Imagine if you could notify one of your users when they are within a few blocks of a great new restaurant and offer them a coupon. With geo-locating using push notifications, you can. With any push notification, be sure to limit the frequency of these notifications so that you don’t notify people too often of nearby deals.

13. Use custom push sounds to make your app recognizable Are you building a promotional app for a band? You can use custom push sounds, like a popular guitar riff, to notify the user of upcoming tour dates, new album releases, and more.

This feature works better for promotional apps that don’t send a ton of push notifications and can become annoying when inappropriately or overly us

14. Use badge counts The badge count feature displays the number of notifications that have been unread within your application directly on the icon on the screen of any iOS device. For your basic to-do list application, the badge count can show the number of upcoming or immediate items that need attention. Does your app have a chat feature? Show the number of unread messages in your application easily with a badge count and keep your users coming back to chat often.

15. Know your users and be personable Sometimes it’s okay to take a break from business and let your customers know your company is not a robotic money-making machine. During the holiday season or on birthdays send a simple, “Happy Thanksgiving from Parse,” or “Happy Birthday. You’re Awesome,” instead of, “Save 15% on everything today only.” People will appreciate the friendly note and your app could see increased traffic without using a pitch.

PLNDR, a self-described “members only boutique,” has made its living off of flash sales. The Karmaloop offshoot has weaved its way onto phones across the US, using well-known pop culture references to form a connection with its user base. In this particular campaign,

they’re offering the user 40% off and free shipping using the discount code (after spending $40).

The Reference​ : “Bout that action” is a phrase coined by the infamous Marshawn Lynch in his pre-Super Bowl interview with Deion Sanders. The soft spoken Seattle Seahawks running back was implying he’s more interested in showing his skills on the field, rather than talking them up off the field.PLNDR is imploring users to do the same. They don’t want their users to talk about their clothes, they want them to actually take action, and buy them. Rather than just a generic, “40% off when you shop now,” they repurpose this pop reference and build a connection with their target market.

16.​ Best Practices for Snackbars & Toasts ​ Usage Show only one snackbar on screen at a time.

Placement Snackbars appear above most elements on screen, and they are equal in elevation to the floating action button. However, they are lower in elevation than dialogs, bottom sheets, and navigation drawers.

Behavior Upon entrance, snackbars animate upwards from the bottom edge of the screen. When they appear, they do not block input.

They exit by being swiped off-screen or automatically disappear after a timeout or user interaction elsewhere (such as summoning a new surface or activity).

Very short text strings Snackbars should contain a single line of text directly related to the operation performed.

They may contain a text action. They cannot contain icons.

Don’t block the floating action button Move your floating action button vertically to accommodate the snackbar height.

Consecutive snackbars There is only ever one snackbar displayed. When a second snackbar is triggered while the first is displayed, the first should start the contraction motion downwards before the second one animates upwards.

References Appboy. (2015, July 5 ). ​ Best Practices Push Notifications .​ Retrieved from Appboy Academy : https://academy.appboy.com/Best_Practices/Push Ghazarian, A. (2014, April 13). ​ 5 Key Elements of User-Friendly Notifications.​ Retrieved from Design Modo: ​ http://designmodo.com/user-friendly-notifications/ Google . (2014 ). ​ Snackbars & Toasts.​ Retrieved from Google Development : Components : http://www.google.com/design/spec/components/snackbars-toasts.html Hui, E. K. (2013, June 26). ​ A Conversation with Gina Trapani: On Designing Meaningful Notifications.​ Retrieved from Adaptive Path: http://www.adaptivepath.com/ideas/a-conversation-with-gina-trapani-on-designing-meaning ful-notifications-2/ Kiertz, C. (2014, September 9). ​ THE 2014 PUSH AWARDS - BEST AND WORST PUSH MESSAGES OF THE PAST YEAR.​ Retrieved from Localytics : http://info.localytics.com/blog/the-2014-push-awards-best-and-worst-push-messages-of-the -past-year Microsoft. (2014). ​ Toast notification overview (Windows Runtime apps).​ Retrieved from Windodws Development Center : https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/Hh779727.aspx Smith, A. (2012, November 26). ​ Don’t Be Pushy: 10 Useful Tips for Awesome Push Notifications.​ Retrieved from Parse Blog : http://blog.parse.com/non-technical/dont-be-pushy-10-useful-tips-for-awesome-push-notific ations/ Xicota, D. (2014). ​ 7 Push Notifications Best Practices.​ Retrieved from Gamedonia: http://blog.gamedonia.com/push-notifications-best-practices