[IxDA Discuss] Date Format

Fri Apr 6 12:59:40 PDT 2007

Large parts of Asia too I'm told.
--Pete

On 6 Apr 2007, at 20:08, Håkan Reis wrote:

> Well, I have to correct you on that. The ISO standard happen to be  
> the norm
> in Sweden as well (and most of Scandinavia) At least yyyy-mm-dd or
> dd/mm/yyyy give you a clear path from bigger increment to the  
> smaller or
> vice versa. Using mm/dd/yyyy to my mental wiring would be like  
> telling time
> in minutes, seconds and hours or maybe hours, seconds and minutes.
>
> But it's mostly a cultural thing, find the users first. And to the  
> original
> question, yes if there is space us the MMM thing.
>
> / Håkan Reis
>
> On 4/6/07, David Malouf <dave.ixd at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi Susie,
>>
>> While ISO is necessary for formatting, why would I present that? I  
>> can
>> keep that behind the scenes. ISO is not familiar to any user I have
>> ever met. It is not taught in lower level education and has to be
>> learned new. if I kept the ISO format at the programmatic level I
>> solve your problem, no? if it is something in Excel or other non-web
>> environment, Excel hides the ISO from the user already so you don't
>> need to repeat it.
>>
>> -- dave
>>
>>
>> On 4/6/07, Susie Robson <Susie.Robson at mathworks.com> wrote:
>>> I agree with what some have said, using the MMM (APR, JAN) in either
>>> position is obvious whereas using all numbers can be rather  
>>> confusing
>>> since it can be done either way. However, I think context can be
>>> important. We have some apps that have a date column and if you  
>>> want to
>>> sort the date in ascending or descending order, using the ISO  
>>> YYYY-MM-DD
>>> allows for accurate sorting. That is why we choose to use ISO  
>>> format,
>>> but that's because of our needs. Your mileage may vary.
>>>
>>> Susie
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com
>>> [mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.interactiondesigners.com] On Behalf Of
>>> David Malouf
>>> Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 9:32 AM
>>> To: discuss at ixda.org
>>> Subject: Re: [IxDA Discuss] Date Format
>>>
>>> Alok,
>>>
>>> there are a lot of issues around this.
>>> What are your layout constraints. A numbers only date format  
>>> takes up
>>> less space so that might be a reason to continue this.
>>> I also think that a numbers only date is not really that great of a
>>> cognitive load and to Peter's point if this is a US site there is NO
>>> way they want to consider "foreigners" in the equation. Learn the US
>>> way or leave is the usual way of doing things.
>>>
>>> Now that being said, if you ARE worried about cog load and you DO  
>>> have
>>> the space then of course it is always better to be more specific and
>>> clear in everything you present. i don't think you need research to
>>> support this notion. But if the client has been doing this across  
>>> the
>>> enterprise, why focus on this seemingly small element to effect
>>> change. i'm sure you have much bigger battles to fight, no?
>>>
>>> I guess in the end I can't imagine the cog load issue is REALLY that
>>> big of a deal. Since like 2nd grade USers are using a numbers only
>>> date format, so I think we got it down at this point.
>>>
>>> -- dave
>>>
>>> On 4/6/07, Peter Bagnall <pete at surfaceeffect.com> wrote:
>>>> Hi Alok,
>>>>
>>>> I'm in the UK so the standard date format is dd/mm/yyyy but I  
>>>> always
>>>> use dd/MMM/yyyy because that way I know that regardless of where
>>>> users are from the date will be unambiguous - hence less confusion,
>>>> cognitive load and error. If I were in the US I would do precisely
>>>> what you're suggesting.
>>>>
>>>> With people being mobile, there are plenty of Europeans in the  
>>>> US and
>>>> visa versa who might misinterpret 04/12/2007 - is that 4 Dec  
>>>> 2007 or
>>>> Apr 12, 2007? I know I found that confusing when I was in the  
>>>> US. My
>>>> coping mechanism was to find other dates in the document which were
>>>> not ambiguous to see what format was being used, I never felt
>>>> entirely confident about it.
>>>>
>>>> Cheers
>>>> --Pete
>>>>
>>>> On 6 Apr 2007, at 12:49, Alok Jain wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>>
>>>>> I am working on an application for a US Federal department. They
>>>>> have been
>>>>> using the standard date format of mm/dd/yyyy e.g. 04/12/2007. I am
>>>>> of the
>>>>> belief that using MMM DD, yyyy e.g. Apr 12, 2007 will be better as
>>>>> it puts
>>>>> less cognitive load on the users.
>>>>>
>>>>> I am aware of ISO standard (yyyy-mm-dd) but am looking for  
>>>>> specific
>>>>> research
>>>>> data. Is anyone aware of any research on the this? Any eperiences/
>>>>> opinions?
>>>>>
>>>>> Regards
>>>>> Alok Jain
>>>>> ________________________________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>> ----------------------------------------------------------
>>>> You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.
>>>>       - Jeannette Rankin, 1880 - 1973
>>>>
>>>> Peter Bagnall - http://people.surfaceeffect.com/pete/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> ________________________________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> David Malouf
>>> http://synapticburn.com/
>>> http://ixda.org/
>>> http://motorola.com/
>>> ________________________________________________________________
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>>
>>
>> --
>> David Malouf
>> http://synapticburn.com/
>> http://ixda.org/
>> http://motorola.com/
>> ________________________________________________________________
>> Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
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>>
>
>
> -- 
> Håkan Reis
> Dotway AB
>
> Voice: +46 (40) 602 32 10
> Sms: +46 (768) 51 00 33
>
> http://blog.reis.se
> ________________________________________________________________
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Peter Bagnall - http://people.surfaceeffect.com/pete/