Two push notifications

Here are two push notifications: one from Ukrainian Monobank, and another from Polish Bank Millennium. Both are popular banks with millions of clients.

This is the kind of notification customers receive every time they use their card. I wonder how many of these are sent daily!

Monobank’s notification is very thoughtful. It makes great use of the available space — the amount paid is prominently displayed in the title, the merchant’s name is shown (although a “nice” name is often not available), and the remaining balance is clearly visible. There’s also an emoji to represent the transaction category.

On the other hand, Bank Millennium’s notification is full of clutter. To find out how much you’ve paid, you have to scan the text to locate the amount in the middle of a complicated, robotic message. The notification takes up almost all the available space, yet the signal-to-noise ratio is ridiculously small.

It’s a design task to make such notifications look good. However, designers are often not even asked to work on such things. In some cases, a developer might have enough taste and experience to make it great. In other cases, a developer might feel that a designer’s help is needed, and reach out for collaboration. There are other possible scenarios — but to make it good, there must be at least one person who genuinely cares.

Reflecting on this year, I realized I’ve spent significantly more time in a code editor than in Figma. I appreciate the ability to make important design decisions directly in code — it’s opened new doors and allowed me to make a bigger impact. I’m excited to keep working this way in the future.

P.S. What’s funny is how often you encounter advocates for the worse option. Their arguments can sound loud:

• “We need our bank name in bold!”
• “We’re required to show the full date and card title!”
• “It’s impossible to display the merchant name!”
• “We’re an N-million-dollar company. Our notifications are great and we have more important things to do.”

These claims aren’t always accurate. Some people just don’t pay enough attention to the important details. Fortunately, this works like evolution: those who care migrate to companies that care, allowing banks like Monobank to win more customers in a competitive market.