Growing up, one of my favorite articles was a National Geographic piece on pufferfish. This fascinating creature (known as fugu in Japan) has two unique qualities. First, it can inflate itself into a round bulbous shape. This unique defense mechanism makes the fish much harder for a larger predator to eat. Second, most puffers contain a toxin deadly to humans. A single fish has enough poison to kill 30 people!
I remember the article most for the highly trained chefs using incredible skill and training to prep the fish to eat. If prepared by the chef incorrectly, a rare delicacy instantly turns into a deadly dish.
Fast forward to the 2010s: the heyday of touchscreen mobile. Push notifications became all the rage, flooding lock screens everywhere with an overload of content. Not surprisingly, a backlash followed: People opted out of push notifications altogether.
As a UX designer, I struggled to think about how to design push notifications for mobile apps — until I remembered the pufferfish article from my childhood. The solution was to think just like those pufferfish chefs: If you make sure to cut out all the poisonous parts, you’ll serve up a delightful mobile experience. On the other hand, one single mistake could be fatal to your app’s chances for survival on a phone.
