PRESENTATION HIERARCHY IN A NOTIFICATION USER INTERFACE

A computing device is described that receives one or more notifications, categorizes, each of the one or more notifications as either: important and ongoing, person-to-person, or regular, by-the-way, and groups the one or more notifications according to category. The computing device receives a user input for displaying a notification area of a graphical user interface and displays the notification area such that: by-the-way notifications are displayed least prominent, regular notifications are displayed more prominent than the by-the-way notifications, person-to-person notifications are displayed more prominent in than regular notifications, and important and ongoing notifications are displayed more prominently than person-to-person notifications. Appropriate categorization of notifications may provide a user with information relating to underlying operation of the computing device, and may for example immediately indicate the significance of one or more notifications to that operation.