Google Chrome Introducing the quieter permission UI for Web Push Notifications

Web users can receive notifications with important information, updates, news, and more, even if they are not on the website. These notifications come in all shapes and sizes for mobile, desktop, and laptop.

Before you receive a notification, you will need to have given permission for this on the relevant website. These permission requests can sometimes be perceived as a bad user experience, often annoying users. According to Chromium blog, this is why Chrome 80 comes up with appropriate measures regarding these opt-in requests.

Overview

Chrome presented the "Quieter UI" earlier as shown in the picture below. The Quiet User Interface is available for both mobile and laptop/desktop.

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According to the Chrome User Experience Report, Chrome will show users a browser prompt to allow the user's active website to display Push Notifications when they are accepted by the website. There are 4 ‘states’ for the browser prompt on the website:

Accept:

Allow notifications from that website.

Block:

When the user clearly indicates not allowing Push Notifications from the website.

Dismiss:

When the user closes the browser prompt without selecting an option.

Ignore:

When the user does not take any action regarding the browser prompt at all.

Subscribing and opting out from the Quieter UI

There are a few different ways in which you as a user can subscribe to allow Push Notifications.

1. Manually

It is possible to manually unsubscribe yourself for the browser prompts or to subscribe manually. If you want to unsubscribe, you can do so in the “settings” of your Chrome browser. Browse to “site settings” > notifications and disable the toggle "sites can ask to send notifications". To make sure you are subscribed to notifications, enable the toggle for “use quieter messaging (blocks notifications prompts form interrupting you)”.

Alt text: manually opt in to browser notifications via the settings menu of your browser.

2. Automatically opt-out (for users who are less likely to accept notifications)

Users who deny or block notifications more often will automatically stop receiving Push Notifications prompts. The quieter notifications UI will automatically activate the quieter messaging toggle/checkbox.

3. Automatically opt-out (on website with low opt-in rates)

Websites that turn out to have a very low opt-in rate will be automatically enrolled for quieter browser prompts. Don't be afraid, if the developer puts effort in optimizing the user experience, Chrome may unsubscribe the website for quieter browser prompts.

About the opt-in rate

The difference in Block/Accept rates for mobile and desktop can vary massively. For example, a website that publishes a lot of news can have significantly higher acceptance rates on mobile as opposed to desktop. Also the quieter UI can disable browser prompts per website on mobile and allow it for desktop devices depending on the performance per device. To make sure you’re less likely to get stuck in the automatic browser prompt opt-out, make sure you follow recommended patterns from Google Developers or watch the video below.

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Summary

We hope this has helped you understand the changes with Google Chrome web browsers, in particular what they are, what it means for your Push Notification service and how you can deal with them by means of improving your user experience.

Note that Chrome is still gathering feedback and new input from users and developers, and later in 2020, they plan to take extra care of websites that abuse opt-in for advertising, malware, or other purposes against their guidelines.

If you have any questions regarding the Google Chrome Web Push Notifications changes for your business, do not hesitate to contact us. We are here to help!