I recently began volunteering at a tech collective, @CaribbeanMassiveinTech (Instagram), and my son’s high school soccer booster club. Each of these organizations uses Gmail for communication, which added two more accounts to the three accounts I already had for personal, business, and my former public teacher email.
But, you are no longer in education and don’t teach anymore, so why do you still have it?
Good point! I like to think of myself as a good person, so in the event, a former student may reach out because that’s the email I shared at the end of the school year for the older students I taught, I want to be available for them if they need something. After all, if they are reaching out to a former teacher, years after I taught them, it may be something serious.
Back to my new dilemma, with 5 different Gmail accounts. When I would get a notification, it wasn’t a quick recognition to determine which account I was getting a notification from. As a former educator, and someone that generally has some common sense and keen critical-thinking abilities, I am aware I could use context clues to determine which account the notification was from. However, this was taking more than a few seconds.
We are in a Web3, Fast data, AI, automation, and quick results age, therefore, more than a few seconds to decipher proved daunting.
Well, what if the notifications were different and easier to distinguish?
As a UX Researcher & Interaction Designer, the only logical way to determine if different notifications were viable was to conduct some research.
Yes, that is it! I was already visualizing some differences that would make it easier for me, but is this an issue that affects other users?
I created a Google Form and distributed it across many communities I am a part of on Slack, Discord, and Facebook. I let the survey collect results for 24 hours.
Wonderful! Fifty-four percent of surveyed users, also find it difficult to distinguish the difference between which Gmail account the notification is coming from. Alas! I am NOT alone.
As you can see above, there are two Gmail notifications. I can only determine the difference if I remember which email is subscribed to Walgreens notifications and which email is subscribed to Puerto Rico notifications.
In this first iteration, the Google profile icon is paired with the standard Gmail icon. With this version, when I open to see my notifications, I can quickly see which account this is from. This option easily taps into Jakob Nielsen’s principle of Recognition Rather than Recall.
In the second iteration, the only icon visible is the Google profile icon. With this change, one will still need to rely on both the icon and the text, thus eliminating the Recognition Rather than Recall principle.
In the third and final iteration, the only icon visible is the Google profile icon. However, similar to Instagram Engineering, I also included the title of the notification in brackets, [Gmail]. While this option does not completely eliminate Recognition Rather than Recall, it allows you to know its Gmail at a quick glance.
The only logical thing to do next was to see if these ideas were viable. After all, 54% of the original survey respondents felt the same as me. This time I used Qualtrics to get more intricate data and see which notification method users preferred.
40% of users chose the below style, with both the Gmail icon and Gmail profile icon.
Users chose this style for the following reasons:
“It shows both the email notification and who mailed it”.
“I recognize the icon and my profile image and so I’ll most quickly recognize what the notification refers to”
“I like the image reminder below the icon to differentiate the account.”
40% of users chose the below style with both the Gmail profile icon and the word Gmail in brackets [Gmail] in the notification text.
Users chose this style for the following reasons:
“Easy to read.”
“It distinguished which is easier.”
20% of users chose the below style with only the Gmail profile icon.
Users chose this style for the following reasons:
“Because I can use the pic to see which account.”
“I[t] would help me to know which gmail account I am getting the email from and it doesn’t look so bulky, like [th]e first option.”
My little 3-day adventure didn’t give me a clear reason to change the notification method as the two iterations resulted in a tie. However, it did give me satisfaction that I am not alone, other users struggle with the same dilemma as well. It also gave me an opportunity to utilize my UX Research and UX Design skills in a non-work setting. If anything, maybe it also gives Google an idea to possibly implement in the future.
During that weekend, I noticed that this is also an issue with Slack API and Discord notifications.
On Slack, you do get a profile image, but you have to rack your brain to try to remember which group it is from. Then when you do click on the notification, there is no easy way to determine which Slack group it is until you click out of the message to see which group it’s from.
On Discord, the notifications do provide a similar feature to Instagram in that it provides the group name in parenthesis next to the user's name. However, if the user has a long username, sometimes you cannot see the portion that was in parenthesis, or you can only see a small portion of it. Therefore, if you had two or more Discord groups that start the same such as UX Collective and UX Designers, you wouldn’t know which group the notification is from.
If I had more time first, I would have collected emails in my screener so that I can use those same participants for the A/B study, creating a more targeted audience.
Also, I would conduct another A/B study with the two options that had the highest support to eliminate the possibility of the third option, and to allow the study to collect responses for a longer period of time. I conducted this over a weekend, by allowing the study to last longer, I may have captured different users that may have offered a different perspective.
For now, I will do the best I can with my context clues and best attempts to distinguish which Gmail account my notifications are coming from. 🫠
