With many changes happening to the Roblox website recently (new Configure Group page and now a new Trade page), it seems like Roblox is really focusing on updating their website with features users truly want in 2020. One neglected feature, however, is notifications, and it has been like that from the start.
It all goes back to 2016-2017 when Roblox first introduced the “Notifications Tray” button near the Robux icon. This was a wise move to combine all notifications and put them all in one place, however, it didn’t do that. Some notifications, like game updates, are exclusively viewable in this area. While others, like friend requests are viewable here and as a message from Roblox. Lastly, features like group shouts and user statuses aren’t even present on this notifications panel, and instead on a completely different “My Feed” page, which was originally on the user’s homepage.
This all leads us to today, where notifications are scrambled across the website in different pages and locations. The whole experience is a convoluted mess. The notifications tray, although a nice idea in theory, was never updated to include all of these different types of alerts on the platform. And that’s exactly the problem; it’s not like Roblox hasn’t got the solution to this, they do, they just won’t clean up the entire experience for users.
Developer stats, premium pay out messages, and DevEx alerts don’t need to be sent as private messages when a notification tray exists. A simple “Roblox Alerts” section could be added above all else, prioritizing notifications such as DevEx and more. Friend requests don’t need to be sent as an alert in the notification tray and as a private message. Finally, group shouts and statuses are important for many users, why are they on a completely different page that barely anyone visits? Before they were moved to their own page, they would get a ton of usage. Just as game updates are posted within the notification tray, so should group shouts and more.
With so many different types of alerts, it would make sense to provide a way to filter through them as well. So if Roblox sees fit to turn the whole notification tray into an actual page, then so be it, but there is absolutely no need to have three different methods of alert communication when you already have a built in method of agregating them.