I don't know.. maybe I am off the wall.. but, I'd like to break-out of
tradition, and think differently than day view, week view, month view,
etc. I have been thinking about how I use my computer-based
calendars.. I just had an off the wall idea I'd like to propose.. I
hope I can state it clearly...
First, maybe we should think of them more in terms of what question a
calendar view is looking to answer, rather than "we need a day view, a
week view, a month view, etc".
Second, there should perhaps be more different calendar views.
Third, there should be keystroke shortcuts to quickly switch between
the views.. and the switching should be lightning quick.
Fourth, each view should have customization in it. Each user has
their own specific needs and requirements- of course there are
similarities, and we can guess or research to detemine the most common
case, but configurability is a huge plus. Users have always surprised
me when I let them use a program the way it best meets their needs.
One example would be allowing each user to easily stretch the width
and/or height of the "standard" time unit.
====Different calendar views====
Here are some of the concepts I imagine, and I certanly expect that
once these actually get designed in detail there could be variations.
I'd like to see a day view which is different when it is today, vs
when it is tomorrow, vs when it is some day in the future.
I'd like to see a day view which is actually 2 views side by side or
overlayed in some fashion- 1) One of these subviews shows the whole
day (within the user's "day window of interest", i.e. perhaps 6am to
10pm) 2) the other subview shows some smaller, definable set of hours,
with more detail per event
I'd like to see a today view which has time before this current hour
compressed (perhaps 1 line per item), near-term times (4/6/8 hrs
configurable) expanded, and later times compressed. Also, compressed
segments could be easily expanded with a single keystroke or single
mouse click.
I'd like to see a 2 week view which shows more than free/busy.
I'd like a 4 week view which shows event title only or maybe one
line of event title.
I'd like special icons I can assign to events so that certain
events can be easily picked up out of a many week, many event
calendar.
I'd like special icons I can assign to event categories as above.
====Questions I ask myself when using calendar====
How does my day look today?- i.e. free/busy
How does my day look tomorrow?
What have I got going for the rest of the day?
Let me review in some detail my activities for today/tomorrow.
When is my meeting with Phil?
Where is my meeting with Maria?
What are the details of that planning meeting?
What time slot is available for a weekly half-hour meeting?
How are the next 2/4/6 weeks shaping up?
When is the quarterly budget meeting? (could be any day in the next 4
weeks, so I need to be able to see the event titles only in a 4 week
view, and I need to be able to scan through this quickly)
Can any of these ideas be incorporated?
--
Dennis Lynch
dmlynch [at] alum.mit [dot] edu
dmlynch1 [at] gmail [dot] com
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