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I'm in the situation where I have an event, and I want to notify some people 15 minutes before that event happens (but it could be 30 minutes, or 1 day, or any amount of time).

What do you call that 15 minutes?

UPDATE: My specific case is for a program I'm writing. I have an event and I want to create a notification that happens X time before the event. I'm having trouble finding a name for that X time.

NOTIFICATION             TIME LAPSE                   EVENT
     |                       | (belongs to              |
     |                       |  notification)           |
     |<------------------------------------------------>|

I was trying to name it something like "Notification premure" or "Notification ahead-time", but none of them convince me, and I'm having troubles thinking of other alternatives. Any ideas?

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  • 12
    The calm before the storm.
    – yoozer8
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:24
  • 3
    Alternatively: Nap time.
    – fluffy
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 21:51
  • 1
    Outlook simply calls the notification a Reminder. Create a new event on your calendar -- the UI has Reminder: [15 minutes]
    – josh3736
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 4:09
  • @Jim: As a foreigner, I would prefer something like calmBeforeTheStorm in programming, it's very intuitive and I don't have to learn new words. +1
    – Lenik
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 4:24
  • For the user interface or for a variable name? For the user interface it may well be clearer to have "reminder" and a drop-down box with "15m before", "1h before", etc.
    – Jack V.
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 13:37

13 Answers 13

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34

You might call it the interim.

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21

You might call it the lead time to the event.

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  • 1
    I don't think that's quite right; the lead time would be the minimum possible time between deciding to do something and finishing it. An advance warning might be part of the lead time: see here.
    – Brian Hooper
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:19
  • Lead-up Period might be better.
    – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 22:55
9

You could call that period the Alert Period or Notification Period since it's the time between when the notification (or alert) occurs and the event that the notification notifies about. I suppose if you want to make it sound more dramatic you could call it a Countdown Period (or maybe just Countdown) since you're counting down time to the event.

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  • 1
    Thanks. Still, "Alert period" makes me think that the alarm will ring for 15 minutes non-stop. Do you know a way to call it that makes it sound more as a time difference than as a period of time?
    – Pablo Venturino
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 18:34
  • @PabloVenturino: Hmmm... could you give an example sentence of how you'd like to use this term?
    – FrustratedWithFormsDesigner
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 18:36
  • 1
    sure. I just updated the question to explain my problem better. Thanks!
    – Pablo Venturino
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:22
  • 1
    How about Notification Interval?
    – Jay Elston
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:33
6

LAST CALL came to my mind, although it might not apply here.

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  • +1 for the laugh ... one more round before we go, and make it a double.
    – Will
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 21:40
  • I don't see how this could apply to this question.
    – Marthaª
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 18:14
  • @Marthaª just for fun :)
    – Terry Li
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 18:19
4

If you want a word for the notification itself, try "reminder", "alert", "notice", or "warning bell".

If you want a word for the time period itself (which I think is what you're asking), that could be a "pre-event period", "notice period", or "reminder period". (I can't think of a single-word term.)

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  • Thanks Monica. It doesn't need to be a single word, I'm just looking for something that's not a whole sentence.
    – Pablo Venturino
    Commented Nov 9, 2011 at 19:07
  • +1 for "notice period" - it's the most obvious to me, whether talking about notice of a meeting or the ending of a contract.
    – Matt
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 9:07
4

I think of this time period as the reminder interval.

From a user interface standpoint, it is worth noting that Google doesn't use any terminology for this time period when adding reminders to the calendar. It's assumed that the reminders will be some period of time before the event so adding a reminder just prompts you for the type of reminder and the amount of time (10 mins default).

Maybe you could also check with ux.stackexchange.com to see what they recommend.

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4

A couple suggestions:

  • AdvanceNoticePeriod
  • HeadsUpInterval
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4

How about notice period?

In conversation, people may use just "notice", e.g. one month's notice, two hours' notice, etc

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3

I think the normal term for this would be 15 minutes notice, or two weeks notice, or whatever.

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3

I would refer to it as a Notification Interval

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2

Anticipation. Positively or negatively.

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2

This would be derived from the term an advance notification, which is the correct term for what is happening. The actual time between the notification and the event would be called the advance period, which is also a legal term (used for instance in regards to loans).

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0

How about calling it the grace time of the event?

(On forced reboots, Windows gives you a short grace time to save and close everything you have open before the system shuts down for the reboot and forces everything to close.)

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  • 1
    I've only ever heard it referred to as a grace period, never time; and I don't think it answers the OP's question.
    – Marthaª
    Commented Nov 10, 2011 at 15:11

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