Categories
Design

Facebook Foibles: Notifications UI

Not for the first time, I triggered an unexpected Facebook dialog box today.

While reading “notifications,” I clicked the “x” to the right of a notice, thinking it would make that notice “disappear” and allow others to rise “up” to the top of the notification panel.

Facebook
An Unexpected Dialog Box

close search

After all, that is what the “x” means: close this thing or clear this search box.

The Facebook response, however, is a macro one, not micro: “Do you want to hide all notifications from Likes?” Ummm … no, I want to delete (not hide) this notification. If I can report this single notification instance as “spam” why can’t I “hide” this one instance?

The user interface is inconsistent. For example, in the Facebook “messages” section, the “x” works as expected: it deletes the message. Why does Facebook notifications violate this standard UI expression?

Facebook Messages
Facebook Messages: "x" deletes a message

By Kathy E. Gill

Digital evangelist, speaker, writer, educator. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles! @kegill

One reply on “Facebook Foibles: Notifications UI”

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d