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Get the Do’s and Don’ts for Notifications from Game Developer Seriously

Posted by Lily Sheringham, Developer Marketing at Google Play

Editor’s note: We’ve been talking to developers to find out how they’ve been achieving success on Google Play. We recently spoke to Reko Ukko at Finnish mobile game developer, Seriously, to find out how to successfully use Notifications.

Notifications on Android let you send timely, relevant, and actionable information to your users devices. When used correctly, notifications can increase the value of your app or game and drive ongoing engagement.

Seriously is a Finnish mobile game developer focused on creating entertaining games with quality user experiences. They use push notifications to drive engagement with their players, such as helping players progress to the next level when they’ve left the app after getting stuck.

Reko Ukko, VP of Game Design at Seriously, shared his tips with us on how to use notifications to increase the value of your game and drive ongoing engagement.

Do’s and don’ts for successful game notifications

Do’s	Don’ts
Do let the user get familiar with your service and its benefits before asking for permission to send notifications.	Don’t treat your users as if they’re all the same - identify and group them so you can push notifications that are relevant to their actions within your app.
Do include actionable context. If it looks like a player is stuck on a level, send them a tip to encourage action.	Don’t spam push notifications or interrupt game play. Get an understanding of the right frequency for your audience to fit the game.
Do consider re-activation. If the player thoroughly completes a game loop and could be interested in playing again, think about using a notification. Look at timing this shortly after the player exits the game.	Don’t just target players at all hours of the day. Choose moments when players typically play games – early morning commutes, lunch breaks, the end of the work day, and in the evening before sleeping. Take time zones into account.
Do deep link from the notification to where the user expects to go to based on the message. For example. if the notification is about "do action X in the game now to win", link to where that action can take place.	Don’t forget to expire the notifications if they’re time-limited or associated with an event. You can also recycle the same notification ID to avoid stacking notifications for the user.
Do try to make an emotional connection with the player by reflecting the style, characters, and atmosphere of your game in the notification. If the player is emotionally connected to your game, they’ll appreciate your notifications and be more likely to engage.	Don’t leave notifications up to guess work. Experiment with A/B testing and iterate to compare how different notifications affect engagement and user behavior in your app. Go beyond measuring app opening metrics – identify and respond to user behavior.

Experiment with notifications yourself to understand what’s best for your players and your game. You can power your own notifications with Google Cloud Messaging, which is free, cross platform, reliable, and thoughtful about battery usage. Find out more about developing Notifications on Android.

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Google Notifications Settings

Googles notifications box from the navigation bar has a new settings button. For now, it shows only 2 services (Google+, Google Photos) and it lets you enable or disable notifications from Google+ and Google Photos.


Heres a screenshot that shows the option thats currently available: "allow notifications here from Google+". For the first time since Google+ was launched, you can now disable Google+ notifications from the navigation bar.


Google Photos was also added to the settings section. When I first checked the settings, Google+ was the only service available, but Google Photos was added after a few hours. If you enable "Suggest new creations" in Google Photos settings, the Assistant feature will automatically create animations, collages and videos from your library and will trigger notifications.


Maybe in the future Google will show notifications from other Google services: Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Drive, YouTube. The title is now "Google Notifications" instead of "Google+ Notifications".

{ Thanks, Mukil Elango. }

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Google Maps is rolling out Wi Fi only mode and mass transit delay notifications to some users

A couple of very useful features have started rolling out to a few lucky Google Maps users in the last couple of days. If youve been following along with our APK Teardowns, you might remember sections covering notifications for mass transit delays and an option to restrict data usage to Wi-Fi only. If youve been eager to see either of these, now might be a good time to open up Maps and poke around.

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Google Maps is rolling out Wi-Fi only mode and mass transit delay notifications to some users was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

from Android Police – Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets http://ift.tt/2a2PEdW
via IFTTT

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