# Understandability of notification UI

**URL:** <https://meta.discourse.org/t/understandability-of-notification-ui/30091>\
**Category:** Feature\
**Created:** [June 16, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/understandability-of-notification-ui/30091 "2015-06-16T16:58:42Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 1

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**Author:** ![mik01aj](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/mik01aj/32/116019_2.png) [@mik01aj](https://meta.discourse.org/u/mik01aj)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/understandability-of-notification-ui/30091/1 "2015-06-16T16:58:42Z")

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From what I’ve seen, some of my users don’t really understand what notifications mean. For example, seeing this:

![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/6/f/6ff92a885fb2b110c92170708184073ff95c3776.png)

They don’t know that ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/f/2/f22f1b1557163d87cf63c58c38f3f6c1aab1fc6d.png) means that it’s a like and not a reply. They don’t know that `@` means “you were mentioned”.

And there’s one more thing that even I (that forum’s admin) don’t understand: ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/6/6/6624c9a23bb6b857657a996030dfa46058ccbe1d.png).  
What does this 🎾 🔵 mean?

I think there’s a lot to improve in the notification UI. Imho Facebook is a good example here. Their notification messages are very clear. Imho StackExchange notification system is ok, too.

![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/5/7/57f3ad6de94925d96d982bf2285d1b7aa50117cd.png) ![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/1/8/18b6018e0fa05bbf7b4ca6308da2e8def86a1e13.png)

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