Common Product Requirements

# PRD: User Notifications

**Proposed file:** `docs/prd/prd-user-notifications.md`  
**Status:** Draft — pending product and business validation  
**Feature slug:** `user-notifications`

## 1. Summary

Create a centralized notifications experience that informs authenticated end users about important account, product, and activity events through an in-app notification center, with optional email and push delivery.

## 2. Discovery and Assumptions

The following assumptions require confirmation:

- **BRD objective:** Improve user engagement and reduce missed product-critical events.
- **What outcome:** Users should notice, understand, and act on relevant events without repeatedly checking different product areas.
- **Which channels:** In-app notifications are required; email and mobile push are optional channels for user-configured notification types.
- **Platforms:** Responsive web and mobile applications.
- **Audience:** Authenticated end users. Administrators and internal operators are notification producers but are not the primary feature audience.
- **Priority:** P0 for in-app delivery and read/unread state; P1 for email and push preferences.
- **Offline mode:** Notifications may be viewed from the last successful sync; new notifications require connectivity.
- **BRD and success metric:** TBD.

## 3. Problem Statement

Users currently risk missing important updates because notifications are not presented in one consistent, discoverable location. This can cause delayed actions, support contacts, and lower engagement.

## 4. Goals and Success Metrics

### Goals

1. Give users one reliable place to view notifications.
2. Clearly distinguish unread and read notifications.
3. Deep-link users to the relevant product context.
4. Let users control eligible email and push notification categories.
5. Provide measurable delivery and engagement telemetry.

### Success metrics

Targets are TBD and must be approved before implementation.

- Notification center adoption rate.
- Percentage of delivered notifications opened.
- Median time from delivery to first view.
- Percentage of unread notifications cleared within seven days.
- Reduction in support requests caused by missed updates.
- Email and push opt-out rate.
- Delivery failure rate.

## 5. User Stories

### US-001 — View notifications

As an authenticated end user, I want to see my recent notifications in one place so that I can understand what requires my attention.

**Business value:** Reduces missed events and unnecessary navigation.

**INVEST check:** Independent, negotiable within channel scope, valuable, estimable, small, and testable.

### US-002 — Manage read state

As an authenticated end user, I want to mark notifications as read or unread so that I can manage my outstanding attention items.

### US-003 — Act on a notification

As an authenticated end user, I want to open a notification and navigate to its relevant destination so that I can complete the required action quickly.

### US-004 — Manage delivery preferences

As an authenticated end user, I want to choose eligible email and push notification categories so that I receive updates through channels I prefer.

## 6. Scope

### In scope

- Notification center accessible from primary navigation.
- Notification list ordered newest first.
- Unread count or badge.
- Read and unread states.
- Mark one notification as read or unread.
- Mark all notifications as read.
- Notification title, message, timestamp, category, and optional destination.
- Empty, loading, error, and offline states.
- Notification detail or expanded view.
- In-app notification delivery.
- User preferences for eligible email and push categories.
- Accessibility, analytics, delivery monitoring, and rollout controls.

### Out of scope

- User-to-user chat or direct messaging.
- Rich notification composition tools for end users.
- SMS notifications.
- Guaranteed real-time delivery.
- Cross-account notification sharing.
- Advanced search, filtering, or custom notification rules.
- Replacing existing transactional email systems until migration is approved.

## 7. Functional Requirements

| ID | Requirement | Objective | Owner | Status | Priority |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| REQ-001 | The product shall provide an authenticated end user with access to a notification center from primary navigation. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-002 | The notification center shall display notifications newest first with title, message, category, timestamp, and read state. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-003 | The product shall display the number of unread notifications, subject to an approved maximum-display rule. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-004 | An authenticated end user shall be able to mark an individual notification as read or unread. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-005 | An authenticated end user shall be able to mark all currently visible or available notifications as read. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-006 | A notification with a valid destination shall navigate the end user to that destination when selected. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-007 | The product shall show defined empty, loading, error, and offline states. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-008 | The product shall allow end users to configure eligible email and push notification categories. | BRD-OBJ-002 | Product | Draft | P1 |
| REQ-009 | The product shall respect notification preferences for optional channels while preserving mandatory transactional notifications. | BRD-OBJ-002 | Product | Draft | P1 |
| REQ-010 | The system shall record notification delivery, display, open, preference, and read-state events. | BRD-OBJ-003 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-011 | Notification content shall be understandable without requiring users to infer the event from a generic title. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |
| REQ-012 | Notifications shall be scoped to the authenticated account and shall not expose another account’s content. | BRD-OBJ-001 | Product | Draft | P0 |

## 8. Acceptance Criteria

### AC-001 — Notification center access

**Maps to:** REQ-001, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given an authenticated end user has access to the product, when they select the notifications entry, then the notification center opens.
- Given an unauthenticated visitor selects a notification entry, when authentication is required, then the visitor is directed through the approved sign-in flow.
- Given an end user lacks access to a notification destination, when they select that notification, then the product shows an appropriate access or unavailable state.

### AC-002 — Notification list

**Maps to:** REQ-002, REQ-003, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given notifications exist, when the center loads, then notifications appear newest first.
- Given a notification is unread, when it is displayed, then its unread state is visually and programmatically distinguishable.
- Given there are no notifications, when the center loads, then the approved empty-state message is shown.
- Given more notifications exist than the initial page, when the end user requests more, then the next page loads without duplicating existing notifications.

### AC-003 — Read state

**Maps to:** REQ-004, REQ-005, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given an unread notification, when the end user marks it as read, then its state changes to read and the unread count updates.
- Given a read notification, when the end user marks it as unread, then its state changes to unread and the unread count updates.
- Given unread notifications exist, when the end user selects “mark all as read,” then all eligible unread notifications become read.
- Given a read-state update fails, when the failure is detected, then the product communicates the failure and preserves the last confirmed state.

### AC-004 — Notification action

**Maps to:** REQ-006, REQ-011, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given a notification has a valid destination, when the end user selects it, then the destination opens and the notification is marked read according to the approved behavior.
- Given a notification has no destination, when the end user selects it, then the notification content remains viewable without navigation.
- Given the destination no longer exists, when the end user selects it, then the product shows an unavailable state and does not expose an invalid or unauthorized resource.

### AC-005 — Loading, error, and offline states

**Maps to:** REQ-007, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given notification data is loading, when the center is opened, then a loading state is shown.
- Given notification retrieval fails, when the center is opened, then an error state with a retry action is shown.
- Given the end user is offline and cached notifications exist, when the center is opened, then the last successfully synchronized notifications are viewable with an offline indicator.
- Given the end user is offline and no cached notifications exist, when the center is opened, then the approved offline empty state is shown.

### AC-006 — Channel preferences

**Maps to:** REQ-008, REQ-009, BRD-OBJ-002

- Given optional notification categories exist, when the end user opens preferences, then each category shows its available email and push controls.
- Given the end user disables an optional channel, when a future notification in that category is generated, then that channel is not used.
- Given a notification is mandatory, when the end user disables optional channels, then mandatory-delivery rules remain enforced.
- Given preference saving fails, when the end user changes a setting, then the product communicates the failure and does not falsely display the setting as saved.

### AC-007 — Privacy and account isolation

**Maps to:** REQ-012, BRD-OBJ-001

- Given two authenticated accounts exist, when either account opens its notification center, then only notifications authorized for that account are displayed.
- Given notification content contains protected data, when it is rendered in any channel, then it follows approved privacy and redaction rules.
- Given an account is signed out, when cached notifications are accessed, then they are not available to the next account.

### AC-008 — Analytics

**Maps to:** REQ-010, BRD-OBJ-003

- Given a notification is delivered, displayed, opened, marked read, or marked unread, when the event occurs, then the corresponding analytics event is recorded with approved identifiers and timestamps.
- Given a user changes a channel preference, when the change is saved, then the preference-change event records the category, channel, and resulting state without recording sensitive notification content.

## 9. Non-Functional Requirements

- **Performance:** Notification center initial content should render within 200 ms after required data is available; exact end-to-end service targets are TBD.
- **Availability:** Existing notifications should remain viewable when the notification service is temporarily unavailable if cached data exists.
- **Accessibility:** Meet the applicable WCAG 2.2 AA requirements, including keyboard navigation, focus management, screen-reader labels, and non-color unread indicators.
- **Security:** Enforce server-side account authorization; do not rely solely on client-side filtering.
- **Privacy:** Minimize sensitive content in notification previews, email subjects, push payloads, and analytics.
- **Offline:** Support read-only access to the last synchronized notification state; queueing offline mutations is TBD.
- **Localization:** Support the product’s existing localization and time-zone conventions.
- **Retention:** Notification retention duration and deletion behavior are TBD.

## 10. Analytics and Operations

### Events

- `notification_center_opened`
- `notification_displayed`
- `notification_opened`
- `notification_marked_read`
- `notification_marked_unread`
- `notifications_marked_all_read`
- `notification_preference_changed`
- `notification_delivery_succeeded`
- `notification_delivery_failed`

### Guardrails

Monitor:

- Delivery failure rate.
- Duplicate-delivery rate.
- Unread-count accuracy.
- Notification-center error rate.
- Preference-save failure rate.
- Email and push opt-out spikes.
- Reports of incorrect account exposure or sensitive content.

### Support readiness

Support documentation must explain:

- Where users find notifications.
- How read state works.
- Which notifications are mandatory.
- How email and push preferences work.
- What to do when notifications are delayed or missing.

## 11. Data and API Impact

Product-level impacts requiring technical assessment:

- A persisted notification record with account scope, category, content, read state, timestamps, optional destination, and channel-delivery state.
- APIs or equivalent product interfaces for listing, reading, updating read state, marking all read, and updating preferences.
- Delivery integration for email and push, if approved.
- Analytics event schema.
- Retention, pagination, idempotency, and retry behavior.

The exact database schema, API contracts, and event payloads belong in the SRS/FRS and design-solution workflow.

## 12. RACI and Ownership

| Activity | Product/PM | Engineering | QA/Release | Support/Ops |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Confirm BRD objective and success metrics | A/R | C | C | C |
| Approve requirements and acceptance criteria | A/R | C | C | C |
| Define technical contracts and architecture | C | A/R | C | C |
| Implement feature | C | A/R | C | I |
| Validate acceptance criteria | C | C | A/R | C |
| Approve rollout | A | R | R | C |
| Monitor production guardrails | A | R | R | R |
| Maintain support documentation | A | C | C | R |

Product, Engineering, and QA/release owners must be named before implementation. Current named owners: **TBD**.

## 13. Rollout Plan

1. Validate the BRD objective, success metrics, notification categories, and mandatory-delivery rules.
2. Complete design-solution and implementation-readiness review.
3. Release behind a feature flag to internal users.
4. Run QA across web, mobile, accessibility, offline, authorization, and delivery scenarios.
5. Gradually enable for a controlled percentage of users.
6. Monitor guardrails for at least one approved observation period.
7. Expand rollout if metrics and error thresholds remain within approved limits.
8. Define rollback behavior before general availability.

## 14. Risks and Mitigations

| Risk | Mitigation |
|---|---|
| Notification overload reduces engagement | Start with high-value categories and provide preferences. |
| Incorrect unread counts reduce trust | Define authoritative state and reconciliation behavior. |
| Sensitive content appears in previews | Apply redaction and privacy review before launch. |
| Duplicate or delayed delivery | Use idempotent delivery and operational monitoring. |
| Users miss notifications because of poor discoverability | Provide navigation badge and onboarding/help content. |
| Legacy systems generate inconsistent notification data | Define category ownership and migration boundaries. |

## 15. Open Decisions

- Confirm BRD objective and business success metric.
- Confirm supported platforms: web, mobile, or both.
- Confirm whether email and push are launch requirements or a later phase.
- Define notification categories and mandatory versus optional rules.
- Define retention duration and pagination behavior.
- Define unread-count maximum-display behavior.
- Decide whether opening a notification automatically marks it read.
- Decide whether offline read-state changes are queued.
- Name Product owner, Engineering owner, and QA/release owner.
- Confirm privacy, localization, and regulatory requirements.

## 16. Implementation Gate

No engineering handoff until every implementation slice includes:

- Linked `REQ-*` and `AC-*` identifiers.
- Product, Engineering, and QA/release owners.
- Status and priority.
- Verification lane.
- Approved platform and channel scope.
- Confirmed business objective and success metric.

A `design-solution` workflow is required for database, API, delivery, security, and offline decisions. An `implementation-readiness` review is required before development begins.

## 17. Outcome Report

- **feature_status:** Draft; not implementation-ready.
- **requirement trace:** `REQ-001`–`REQ-012` map to assumed objectives `BRD-OBJ-001`–`BRD-OBJ-003`; `AC-001`–`AC-008` map to requirements and objectives.
- **completed evidence:** Initial scope, user stories, requirements, acceptance criteria, NFRs, analytics, risks, rollout, RACI, and open decisions.
- **missing evidence:** Approved BRD objective, success metrics, named owners, channel/platform decisions, technical contracts, privacy review, and rollout thresholds.
- **decision needed:** Product approval of assumptions and open decisions.
- **recommended next workflow:** Complete discovery, then run `design-solution` and `implementation-readiness` before implementation.