The author may be on to something with the line "A popup notification that runs without concern for what the user is doing is hostile behavior. Notice how there's no API in any OS for "is now a good time to interrupt the user?". Maybe there should be."
Notifications could be deferred while the user is actively typing. When the user goes idle, deferred notifications can be displayed. This becomes more important as more "push" features are crammed into browsers and apps.
I'd like to point out that even if a user goes idle, it might still be a bad time to display notifications. What if a developer is working on a hard problem, and pauses for a while to think about the problem, maybe doodle on a whiteboard/paper, etc.? This could actually be the most damaging time to display a distraction to the developer. The solution to this kind of problem would likely need to be slightly different, possibly including simple mechanics such as "Don't bother me during x time" or "Don't bother me for an hour" to give someone that time they need to just focus/think about something for a block of time.
> A popup notification that runs without concern for what the user is doing is hostile behavior. Notice how there's no API in any OS for "is now a good time to interrupt the user?". Maybe there should be.
This isn’t correct, actually. There is the Do Not Disturb mode in OS X that disables any non-essential notifications and alerts. It can be toggled manually for one day, or according to user-set daily start and end times.
Of course, even though the API exists, apps use it differently and somewhat inconsistently: for example, Apple’s native FaceTime will not distract you in DND mode, but Skype will if someone calls you.
Point being, there is an example of such API that tells any app that asks whether is now a good time to interrupt the user. (Not to argue that actually inferring what you do and avoiding distracting and stealing focus in the middle of typing, as in your example, would take it to another level.)
I've been wanting to put together a notification daemon that lets me batch notifications based on priority (and also review a history of recent notifications).
Windows 8.0 seems to have become especially bad when it comes to this. All of a sudden it will pop up and focus a (modal) window - all there is is the wallpaper (fuzzied) and the window, where did my application go?
No Windows, I don't want to update Java (yet again) when I'm playing a fullscreened video game.
Notifications could be deferred while the user is actively typing. When the user goes idle, deferred notifications can be displayed. This becomes more important as more "push" features are crammed into browsers and apps.