The following sections outline some user interface guidelines for implementing notifications. You should attempt to adhere to these guidelines as well as other user interface guidelines listed in Chapter 8, User Interface Guidelines for HDML Services
GUIDELINE: If you generate multiple alerts to a subscriber for the same information, specify the same URL for all of alerts.
Because the purpose of alerts is to convey timely information, the UP.Phone Inbox card holds only nine alerts. For this reason, you should attempt to conserve alerts. In particular, if you generate several alerts for the same category of information, you should attempt to specify the same URL for all of them (for any given subscriber).
The UP.Phone identifies alerts by their URLs. If an old alert on the Inbox card has the same URL as a new, incoming alert, the UP.Phone replaces (or "coalesces") the old alert with the new alert. You can test this behavior with the UP.Mail application on the UP.Simulator. Each time you receive a new mail message, UP.Mail sends an alert to the UP.Simulator. As each alert arrives, the UP.Phone displays the appropriate signal (flashing or beeping). However, because the UP.Mail alerts all specify the same URL (for each subscriber), only one UP.Mail alert appears on the Inbox card.
If the Inbox card is full and the UP.Phone receives an alert with a URL that is not already on the card, it replaces the ninth alert on the card with the new alert.
Note that when you replace an old alert, you can change the title. For example, on one day, your service could send an alert with the title, "DJIA closes down". The next day, it could send an alert with the same URL, but with the title, "DJIA closes up".
GUIDELINE: Specify the name of your service in the Alert title.
When it displays the popup alert message for your alert, the UP.Phone uses the alert title in the following sentence (as shown in Figure 5-1):
Message from "alert_title". View it now?
where alert_title is the title for your alert. You should attempt to use alert titles that make sense within the context of this sentence. Specifically, you should attempt to use only the name of your service.