Informational messages represent one of the main components of interaction design.

When we create the functional design for an application it is very important to include information messages from the early beginning. Their main purpose is to inform the user about how the system reacted to the user actions. If the information messages are not present than the user will start to be worried and will stop using the application.

This is a basic principle of interaction design.

Another basic principle of interaction states that whenever an user creates, changes or deletes data in an application the system needs to respond with corresponding information messages.

This being said let’s take a look at the information (success) message, added not so long time ago, on LinkedIn:

In my humble opinion, there are at least of few things which can be improved:

1. To reduce the time it is displayed, by keeping it visible for a few seconds and then to take it out. At the moment you have to click the close button or to refresh the page in order to make it disappear. Otherwise it just stays there on the page for a long long time;
2. To resize it and decrease the height in order to be smaller than the height of the navigation bar. If we follow the visual hierarchy principle we might think that the content of the information message is more important than the navigation options;
3. Have all content present in one place and align it either left of center screen. At the moment the user looks at noth sides of the screen to find the relevant option.

The Take-Away

Keep your users informed and on the same time present the informational messages in a user friendly manner.