Every now and again – Apple demands my attention with a red dot on the System Preferences in the dock
![](https://blog.hobbyistsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/dock.jpg)
When they do – I launch the preferences app, and my eye is immediately drawn to the icon at the top right on the ‘Notifications’ icon
![](https://blog.hobbyistsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/top-2-1024x397.jpg)
Of course – that red dot isn’t a notification dot. That’s an icon of a notification dot – not an actual notification dot
I’m supposed to ignore that one, and look for the second one on the ‘software update’ icon
![](https://blog.hobbyistsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/prefs-1024x887.jpg)
That’s just bad UI
Update – Catalina
Apple have fixed this as of Mac OS 10.15
![](https://blog.hobbyistsoftware.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Screenshot-2019-10-29-at-12.27.39.png)