This is an interesting idea but to me it just reinforces the sense of information overload. Maybe if the avatar just had one bubble, or had blue and green rings with no numbers? (I like the way the who’s online plugin displays rings around avatars)
That’s not a bad idea. I like it, as long as the colors are not so bright as to become a distraction.
My point with this topic is that for the ordinary civilians in my community, the distinction between messages and other notifications is irrelevant. They just don’t care and find it confusing to see two bubbles. I can’t speak for other communities and obviously agree that for myself as admin/moderator it is important to see the personal messages. But I honestly also don’t need to see two bubbles to know it’s time to go to my inbox to go through my messages.
Anyhoo, bike shedding and all that. I don’t think this is so important that it needs any big structural changes. I am understanding notifications much better now and appreciate the effort discourse is taking to make sure that important notifications don’t get lost. Maybe simply making the notifications easier to dismiss so people can start fresh will resolve most of the concerns in my community. It’s only when there are hundreds that it seems to get weird for folks.