[Design] Fwd: [Bug 4520] An alternate way to enter time in event detail view

[Mimi Yin]

I am forwarding a discussion that has been brewing in bugzilla  
regarding a date/time picker widget in the detail view that Davor  
created back in November. (See screenshot below.) Most recently there  
has been a bit of back and forth about how to make the widget  
accessible to users.

I wanted to back up a bit and frame the conversation with a few  
questions with the goal of putting the feature in the context of  
usage scenarios, workflows and user needs. I think answering these  
questions will help us figure out:

1. Whether we need to have the widget at all; and if we do need it,
2. What functionality does it need to have; and
3. In what contexts is it most useful?

Questions:

1. Why would someone want to enter date/time information in the first  
place?

2. What are the other ways in which users can assign date/time  
information?
+ e.g. Why would someone edit date/time information in the detail  
view as opposed to manipulating the event lozenge in the calendar  
canvas directly?

3. What are the different kinds of date/time information people will  
want to enter? e.g.
- Date + Time range
- Date + Time
- Date range
- Certain amount of time from Today
- Certain amount of time before a certain date
- Certain amount of time before/after an event
- Month
- Week
- Day
- Soon, Whenever, Unknown

Does anyone have real examples of these different kinds of dates?  
Especially the kinds that aren't generally supported by traditional  
calendar clients? Examples from paper calendars? back of the envelope  
task lists? etc.

4. What are the different contexts people might be in when entering  
date/time information? e.g.
+ Calendar canvas looking at the week that they want to add an event to
+ Calendar canvas looking at a week that is far, far away from the  
week they want to add an event to
+ Looking at an event on the calendar canvas that needs to be moved  
to 10 weeks from this week
+ Looking at an event on the calendar canvas that needs to be moved  
to a different day in the same week
+ Adding a tickler to a task in the Dashboard, table view
etc...

5. What are some other date/time related widgets that might be useful  
to have in the detail view? e.g. a button that will "Show you this  
event on the calendar".

Thanks,

Mimi :o)

  


Begin forwarded message:

> From: bug-comment at osafoundation.org
> Date: June 27, 2006 9:49:27 PM PDT
> To: mimi at osafoundation.org
> Subject: [Bug 4520] An alternate way to enter time in event detail  
> view
>
> http://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4520
>
>
>
>
>
> ------- Comment #9 from cubranic at cs.ubc.ca  2006-06-27 21:49 PST  
> -------
> (In reply to comment #8)
>
>> The key here is that for people who prefer to type they can just  
>> ignore the
>> clock (and/or calendar) widget popping up and just type. Others  
>> can use the
>> mouse to select the value from the GUI control with the mouse.
>
> But if the user clicked in the text field, he is already planning  
> to type, so
> why do you think he will want to switch to mouse selection at that  
> point that
> the calendar/clock should automatically show?
>
> It's fine to have the option, but there should be some visual  
> indication that
> it is more than just a plain text widget. I think in web interfaces  
> that I've
> seen there is usually a down arrow, like on a drop-down box.
>
>
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