PRD Template for Notifications

Example: "Users report missing critical updates because they do not check the app frequently enough. In a survey of 200 active users, 67% said they missed at least one important event (teammate comment, status change, deadline) in the past month. Conversely, 43% of users who receive email notifications have marked them as spam, indicating our current notification volume is too high and not sufficiently targeted."

Example: "Primary: Reduce median time from event occurrence to user awareness from 4.2 hours to under 15 minutes for critical events. Secondary: Achieve a 40%+ open rate on email notifications (currently 12%). Guard rail: Maintain unsubscribe rate below 2% (currently 8%). Reduce notification-related support tickets from 35/month to under 5/month."

Example: "As a project collaborator, I want to receive an in-app notification when someone comments on my work so that I can respond within the context of the conversation without checking the app constantly. Acceptance criteria: notification appears within 5 seconds of the comment being posted; clicking the notification navigates directly to the comment; the notification shows the commenter's name, a preview of the comment text, and the item it is attached to."

Example: "FR-1: The system must support three notification channels: in-app (real-time), email (immediate or digest), and browser push. FR-2: Users must be able to configure notification preferences per event type and per channel via a settings page. FR-3: Email notifications must support daily and weekly digest modes that group events by project. FR-4: In-app notifications must support mark-as-read (individual and bulk), delete, and mark-all-as-read. FR-5: The system must de-duplicate notifications — if a user is mentioned 3 times in the same thread within 5 minutes, send one notification, not three."

Example: "NFR-1: In-app notifications must be delivered within 2 seconds of the triggering event via WebSocket. NFR-2: Email notifications must be sent within 60 seconds of the triggering event (for immediate mode). NFR-3: The notification system must handle 10,000 notifications per minute without degradation. NFR-4: All email notifications must include a one-click unsubscribe link per CAN-SPAM requirements. NFR-5: Notification delivery failures must be retried with exponential backoff (3 attempts max)."

Example: "Metric 1: In-app notification click-through rate. Target: 25%+. Metric 2: Email notification open rate. Baseline: 12%. Target: 40%. Metric 3: Time from event to user action. Baseline: 4.2 hours. Target: under 30 minutes. Metric 4: Email unsubscribe rate. Baseline: 8%. Target: under 2%. Metric 5: Notification preference completion rate. Target: 60% of users customize their preferences within 30 days."

Example: "Notifications will be processed via a message queue (RabbitMQ) to decouple event production from delivery. Each event publishes a single message; a fan-out worker expands it into per-user notifications based on subscription rules. Channel routing resolves user preferences, falling back to workspace defaults. Email delivery uses SendGrid with webhook-based delivery tracking. In-app notifications use WebSocket (Socket.io) for real-time delivery with a REST fallback for offline users."

Example: "Risk: Notification storms — a bulk import or automated process triggers hundreds of notifications in seconds. Likelihood: High. Impact: High (users disable all notifications). Mitigation: Implement rate limiting per user (max 10 notifications per minute) with overflow batched into a digest. Risk: Email deliverability degrades due to spam complaints. Likelihood: Medium. Impact: High. Mitigation: Implement dedicated sending domain, DKIM/SPF/DMARC, and monitor sender reputation weekly."