October 2009 Archives

The date picker UI widget is common. You see it all the time in calendar applications such as airline booking sites. It makes sense. It's a mini-calendar, and the user simply clicks on the day they want.

But time pickers are still in the dark ages. they are usually a drop down menu where you have to scroll down to the time you want. Or worse, 3 spin boxes: one for the hour, one for the minutes, and one for meridian.

My solution is a time picker widget that uses the metaphor of a clock face. Sure, you can type into the text box at the top to simply enter the time you want. Or you can click on the hours, minutes, and meridian on the clock face.

So if you're working on an application that requires users to choose a time of day, think about using this. And let me know in the comments if you do. Thanks!

Update: I wanted to address some of the feedback I received on this. First, yes the parsing of the text box should work for those who want to type. However I still think there is value to having a visual time picker. It nicely parallels the date picker widget, gives them equal visual weight (and therefore equal perceived importance), and—probably most important—it allows the user to keep using the mouse if they were already doing so to pick the date.

And yes, the worst case is 3 clicks to get to the right time, but more likely it will be 2 or 1. For a date picker, it's the same. Next and previous months require an additional click, and further dates even more clicks. You could put two clocks side by side for AM and PM to avoid one click, but I'm not sure that's worth it. Then again, I've always thought that having a Mac OSX dock style date picker with all 12 months shows side by side in a fish eye view would be nice.

Unfortunately, success in the game design industry doesn't result in financial success. Matt's still going to keep working as a UI designer for the foreseeable future.

Matt is going over to the Essen Game Fair in Germany this year, the world's biggest board game conference; I expect he will be received as a hero. And deservedly so. I can't wait to see what his next game will be. I will be one of the lucky ones who gets to see it in the early play-testing stage.