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We're using a menu to enable the user to view a graph of system performance for a specific date. They can select to view today or a date within the last 7 days.

Should all dates be represented in the same format, or does it look odd for menu options mix relative dates with date format? For example:

Today
Yesterday
19 Jan 2010
18 Jan 2010
17 Jan 2010
16 Jan 2010

I noticed that UX Exchange does something similar when it shows when a question was asked. It uses relative dates for: x hours ago, yesterday and 2 days ago before switching to date format.

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7 Answers

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I'd do it as you presented. Not everybody will know the exact date when looking at the popup - whereas almost everybody will know what "today" and "yesterday" mean.

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But what if the user has been asked to get the report for a specific date and that date happens to be yesterday? If they don't know what today is, like you mention, how are they going to know that "Yesterday" is the date that they are looking for. Extreme case, I know, but you have to be able to consider both sides when you make a statement like this. – Charles Boyung Jan 21 at 21:18
Thanks, I'm leaning towards that as well, as it feels like the right thing to do. I too would have difficulty knowing today's date, but if it's presented as 'today' or 'yesterday', then it's fairly obvious. – Janel Jan 22 at 11:01
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Personally I prefer your above example as I find it helps humanize the page.

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 +1. Saying 395 days ago or 3 years 4 months 9 days ago isn't good. But it works for some common ones like you have. You could even add some more like "this month". – Glen Lipka Jan 21 at 17:33
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Honestly, I believe that this is nothing more than a stylistic issue. ThomPete makes a good point that it helps to humanize the page, but whether or not you want that is dependent on what type of environment your system is designed for. I think if the application is to be viewed as a "professional" application by your users, then it might be better to just use dates. Note that this is just about the appearance and impression of the users; it is not a case where the application does or does not serve an actual professional purpose. Using terms like Today and Yesterday instead of the dates may appear more "casual" to some users, so you may want to weigh their thoughts against the value that it provides. Otherwise, I think it's perfectly fine to use it, if you think it looks good that way.

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 Its more than stylistic surely? "Yesterday" isn't casual - it has a very specific meaning. One that's probably more obvious than the date (I've just had to remind myself that today is the 21st for example - I wouldn't have had to look that up and do some minor mental arithmetic for "yesterday".) – adrianh Jan 21 at 18:06
No, it really is just a stylistic issue. And I believe you are misinterpreting "casual" here. Yesterday does have a specific meaning, but when you are looking at a business application, it definitely looks less formal (hence, more casual) than having the date there. If I'm looking at a reporting application, I do not want it to say "Yesterday" because I will probably be forwarding that report data or using it in a presentation, and who knows when it is going to be viewed. Hence, it is more "formal" and "professional" to use the date because there is never a question as to what is meant. – Charles Boyung Jan 21 at 21:13
On the other hand, it might be very useful to have a URL that accepts 'yesterday' or 'last week' as the date range parameter, particularly if you want to bookmark it and refer to it frequently. Depending on the use case, BOTH are appropriate. – Bobby Jack Feb 9 at 18:05
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your example would probably work well (but test it for your particular circumstance)

If space allows you may want to add the relative labels to remove a potential source of ambiguity - a varient of:

Today - 16 Jan 2010 
Yesterday - 17 Jan 2010
18 Jan 2010 
19 Jan 2010 
20 Jan 2010 
21 Jan 2010
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too much info...I think less is more here. Being "precise" is not as important as being natural and clear. – Glen Lipka Jan 21 at 17:32
Glen - I disagree with you - clearly. What I suggest is a way to reduce a potential ambiguity (which it does) which may fit the context of use and the design in general. You however assert without any context whatsoever that 'being precise' is not as important as being natural and clear' a) how do you know? for this system preciseness might be paramount b) how do you know that a my suggestion (a varient of the above) is not more natural and clear? Oh the joy of conflicting opinion - lets user test it! As a side note shame there isn't a way to vote down comments... :-) – Jon Dodd Jan 21 at 17:58
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 I agree with Jon's comment completely, even though I really don't like the solution provided in his answer. There are plenty of times where "precise" is much more important than "natural". And I also disagree that precise and clear are mutually exclusive or that natural and clear go together. More often than not, the exact opposite of both of those statements is true. – Charles Boyung Jan 21 at 21:16
hey charles and glen thankd for your comments - just to clarify I also dont necessarily like the solution above - it is offered as an illustrative example of something that would disambiguate and might work in a certain context (btw I also wouldn't colour it the way the code example thing does, or use fixed font spacing and a hypen!) - lets not discourage people illustrating their comments because some people don't like the illustration... I'll certainly keep on trying to illustrate stuff – Jon Dodd Jan 21 at 23:44
@Jon. Wow. Passion. I love that. If you feel someone is wrong, let em have it! Even if it's me. :) – Glen Lipka Jan 25 at 17:53
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I'd rather see today accented by color, instead of outright saying "today". But that's me.

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 Why? A colour would just tell me that the day was "special" in some way. I'd then have to figure out that it was special because it was today's date. Whereas "today" would tell me straight away that it was.. well... today :-) – adrianh Jan 21 at 18:10
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 Color is also never a good singular identifier for something. People don't all see color the same way. And I agree with adrianh here that color doesn't convey specific meaning in this case at all. – Charles Boyung Jan 21 at 21:19
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How about framing the interface in exactly the same way as your describing the problem, since perhaps this is the way that a user is most likely to think about it as well.

What I mean is that, instead of thinking about the problem in terms of dates, think about it in terms of "Today", "1 day ago", "7 days ago" ...etc etc?

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We did initially have it that way, as we were only going to go up to 4 days of logs. But we had a request to be able to show a full week, and I found that beyond five days, it started to look funny, which is why we came up with the above. – Janel Jan 22 at 11:00
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For clarity, include the numeric date on every option as Jon suggested. For naturalness, include the day of week. Omit the year since the context makes it unnecessary.

Today (Thursday 21 Jan)
Yesterday (Wednesday 20 Jan)
Tuesday 19 Jan
Monday 18 Jan
Sunday 17 Jan
Saturday 16 Jan

And here's an example of why clarity is important. Go to your banking website to pay a bill at 11.59pm and choose "Tomorrow" from the menu. At 12.01am, click the "Pay" button. What date will the payment be made?

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If the banking website is half-decent, having chosen to use an ambiguous value for date, they should also have injected 'current time/date' into the form so they know exactly what the relative date is relative to. You probably don't need to go that far in this specific case, though :) – Bobby Jack Feb 9 at 18:02
Yes, of course the bank will know what date the payment will be made. But the user won't. That's why clarity is important. – Bennett McElwee Feb 10 at 2:16

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