Hi designers!
Welcome to the 27th edition of the CUxD newsletter – a curated set of learnings, inspiration, resources, and tips. I’m Clément, Internal Community Lead, and I’ll be writing to you on behalf of CUxD every week.
If you’re not familiar with CUxD (Cornell User Experience Design), we’re a centralized community for UI, UX, and product designers at Cornell. We learn and grow together both professionally and socially!
Want to be more learn more about UX design?
Table of Contents
Learning time - Notification design
Every week, we’ll explore a topic in design. This week, we’ll talk about designing notification systems: these small messages that guide, inform, and sometimes interrupt users.
Choose the right notification type
Not every message needs the same level of attention.
Toast notifications are lightweight and temporary
Banners sit inline and are “less” disruptive
Modals demand attention and block interaction
Push notifications reach users outside of your app
Different types of notifications (from top left and clockwise: toast, banner, modal, push)
Establish clear priority levels
Design a notification system with different variants, for example:
Low priority (confirmation, like “Saved successfully”)
Medium priority (action needed soon)
High priority (urgent errors or other critical alerts)
You can use visual cues like color, iconography, location, and even shadow to signal urgency. But avoid overusing these high-alert styles or users might start ignoring them!
Different importance levels of toasts
Make notifications actionable
Good notifications don’t just inform: they also guide the user on the next action to do. For example, you could provide a clear next step (”View details,” “Undo,” “Retry”). Remember to keep messages concise as notifications are usually small.
Also, avoid vague wording (”Something broke”), because users shouldn’t have to guess what to do next.
Add actions to your notifications so users aren’t stuck
Conclusion
To wrap up, notification systems are about balance. A well-designed system keeps users informed and guided — without overwhelming or interrupting them unnecessarily. When notifications feel clear, timely, and respectful, they build trust instead of noise.
Internships
NY, $20 - $30 / hr
NY, $18 / hr
NY, $17 / hr
NY, $30 / hr
NY, $20 / hr
Advice from a fellow designer
About
Hello! I’m Cindy Wang, an Information Science major concentrating in Data Science and UX/UI, with a minor in Game Design. I was born in Minnesota and raised in Long Island, NY.
Fav Figma shortcut
My fav Figma shortcut isn’t actually a shortcut, but rather some of the features and capabilities that Figma Draw has been providing (recently have been exploring them a lot more). Some of these features such as path typing and expanded vector editing open the doors up for more visuals/graphics directly in Figma! If I had to say an actual shortcut though, it’d have to be [ and ] to toggle the layer orders.
Previous work experience
Founding Design UX/UI Intern @ FinAI (WeFire)
4x Design Consultant (NY Botanical Gardens, Klook, TextQL, Ai-learners) @ Design Consulting at Cornell
Prev. Design New Member Educator @ Design Consulting at Cornell
Graphics and Design @ Cornell University Autonomous Drone (CUAD)
Proudest design project
My proudest design project was working on Deadalus for Introduction to Game Design (INFO/CS 3162), where I served as the Design Lead and the only full-time designer/artist on the team. I was responsible for shaping the game’s visual identity, designing all assets, and leading the UX/UI direction from concept to the final released game. Building a game from the ground up was incredibly insightful, especially because I worked closely with programmers throughout the entire process to test mechanics, iterate on gameplay feel, and refine interfaces based on both technical constraints and player experience. It pushed me to think beyond visuals and focus on clarity, feedback loops, and how design decisions directly impact immersion and usability. Seeing an idea evolve into a cohesive, playable experience was both challenging and rewarding, and it strengthened my ability to design within a highly collaborative, systems-driven environment. Super fun and highly recommend the class!
Advice
One piece of advice I’d give is to invest some time early in system design, even if you’re working on something small. Taking the time to define components, tokens/variables, and clear interaction patterns makes your work a lot more consistent and much easier to iterate on. The most important factor is making it easier for others to pick up and build upon existing designs (which happens more often than not). It also shifts the mindset from designing individual screens to designing a product that can scale, which becomes especially important when you’re collaborating with other designers or handing work off to engineers. Strong systems also push you to think through edge cases, including error states, loading behaviors, accessibility variations, and especially null or empty states.
Design inspiration
Some cool designs for your dopamine hit!
Outro
That’s all for this week!
Have any feedback or want to see something on the newsletter next week? Email us at [email protected] or reply directly to this email.
See you soon,
Clément @ CUxD