Quieter Notifications UI in Google Chrome - everything you have to know

According to Statcounter Global Data, in March 2022 the market share for the Google Chrome browser was 64,53%. It is the most popular browser nowadays. According to the research that we did among our e-commerce customers, 87,7% of their subscribers used Google Chrome in 2021. The situation is similar for other industries. That’s why it is important to know how web push notifications function in this browser.

Google states that its priority is user experience. Core Web Vitals, phasing out third-party cookies till the end of 2023, password manager, and many other implementations are made with this purpose. Among such improvements was Quieter Notifications UI.

Quieter Notifications UI in Google Chrome

In 2020 with the release of Chrome 80, Google introduced Quieter Notifications UI.

In this case, the subscription form is not displayed on the website, instead, a small animation appears with information that notifications are blocked. It is enough to attract users' attention, the subscription form does not cover anything important on the website and is less interruptive. 

On mobile, there is an info bar on the bottom of the screen that informs users about blocked notifications. 

Since 2020, Google Chrome extended the functionality of Quieter Notifications UI. Let’s see how it works now.

Google Chrome Notifications Settings

In the Google Chrome Settings, every user can choose the default behavior that sites will follow when visiting them.

• ⛔️Don’t allow to send notifications

In such mode, the user doesn’t receive any information that he can sign up for notifications.

• 🔕Use quieter messaging

In such mode, when the user enters the website instead of a subscription pop-up, in some cases, there can be just an icon of a crossed bell by clicking on which users can subscribe to notifications.

In other cases, after entering the site there can be an animation that informs the user about the sent request.

• ✅Sites can ask to send notifications

With this mode after entering the site, the user can see the pop-up subscription window.

However, there are some nuances. Even though this mode can be enabled it doesn’t mean that subscription forms will be displayed on every website that the user enters. Quieter Notifications UI can be still applicable here. So, in which cases Quieter Notifications UI is enabled?

1. The website has a low acceptance rate. 

Back in 2020 Google said that the acceptance rate should be 50% or more, aiming to receive 80% or more.

2. The subscriber almost never accepts the notifications. 

If the user didn’t allow notifications a few times, a quieter notification prompt may appear. However, in the case of the double-click subscription form, the first pop-up displays on the website, and only in the confirmation window, a quieter notification form occurs. Note, that if you have Integration with own domain and turned on the double-click subscription form, there is no second window as the confirmation happens directly in the address bar.

The normal notifications UI will return when the user will start to accept push notifications.

Summing up

On the one hand, it may seem that Quieter Notifications UI makes it more difficult to build the database of web push subscribers. But that’s not really the case. Firstly, after the implementation of this feature, we didn’t see any significant decrease in the growth of subscriber bases of our clients. Secondly, users that subscribed to notifications did it consciously and are more interested in getting web pushes from you. Lastly, a better user experience transforms also into a more positive perception of push notifications in general and users view push notifications as helpful. 

In order to increase your web push subscription rate, Google recommends giving some value before you prompt users and not trying to enroll them as soon as they enter the site. The best way is to offer opt-in opportunities throughout the user journey on the website. In PushPushGo you can set up your subscription form to appear with a delay or to be displayed only on specific subpages.

If you want to communicate with your customers using web push notifications, try it now.