Looks good. I’d prefer for the flags to be prioritised, ie red if flags, green if (no flags but) PMs, blue if (no flags or PMs but) normal notifications.
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Yeah, it’s not a clear choice which of those two should receive priority, but here’s rationale for prioritizing PMs over flags:
- You may have others who handle flags with you, but PMs are often just for you.
- With the sidebar, the Review link shows up with pending flags as well, which stays visible.
But by all means, pile on if you’re someone who has to handle flags and PMs and see it otherwise!
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Maybe it could be yet another site setting 
Flags are probably more urgent (even if less personal). Presumably red was chosen for a reason.
I didn’t mind the old way where various numbers would appear. You got a feel for what was waiting for you.
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I like this, but there could be a better approach. Maybe splitting the bubble’s colors into 2/3?
Before:
After:
I created an account just to comment on this. I’m a moderator on a large forum that gets dozens of items in the review queue every day. It used to be that I could see at a glance how many items I needed to review, which allowed me to plan out my time. Now, I’m stuck with some nebulous number that doesn’t tell me anything. Even worse, a new notification (such as a like) is treated exactly the same as a new item in the review queue or a PM. This means that I have to actively click on my notifications to see if it’s something time sensitive or not. With the old system, I could see at a glance, anywhere on the site, if notifications were time sensitive because of the green and red bubbles.
The new system has completely upended my moderation workflow. I have no idea how to manage my time correctly now, because I have no idea what I actually need to be doing. This change might be fine for normal users, but it’s unusable for moderators/admins. Please give us back green/red notifications with counters, even just for moderators and admins.
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Looks good!
I think if you only intend on using the red color for flags and the green color for PMs, there’s no need for an additional icon to signify that. I.e., you could have a counter instead of the icon, as other folks request. If the color alone is sufficient to determine the nature of the notification, the icon is unnecessary.
I agree with it.
I’d also agree here with @mcwumbly on the reference to the sidebar. The flags are fairly noticeable in it (just because they’re red), and in practice I could spot them fairly quickly, so I don’t need another flag on the avatar to spot them.
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That will not work if the colors depend on the theme like before.
For example the grey amber theme never had green and blue notification bubbles. Both had the same color. So you just had a right or left bubble.
Now there are only right bubbles, so there must be a way the see, which type of notification that is.
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But it’s not like the Grey Amber is a greyscale theme, i.e. it assigns color to other interface elements. So, if Discourse system supports color-coding notification, I’d imagine any custom theme will be able to customize those separately. If any theme author chooses to assign special notifications the same color as for regular notifications, then imho it’s a problem of a theme, not of discourse.
And even in the case of completely greyscale themes, I can imagine different shades of grey can be assigned to different types of notifications.
I don’t think the decision to add icons or not should depend on the existence of themes that purposefully remove the color complexity of the system, similar to how the hot topics in the feed are highlighted by color-coding the number of replies/views and without additional icons signifying hotness just in case some theme may want to make view counts single color regardless of how many views there are.
The icons will help build the association between the color and what it means.
Not everyone is able to easily distinguish among all colors, so having the icon is important for that reason as well.
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Just turned on the experimental hamburger menu yesterday and the only complaint I received was about the distinction in notification bubbles. Glad to see it’s being worked on
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I think this topic can be closed. But What is the difference between the blue and green notification counts? needs an update
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