Posted September 03, 2023 by gingerbeardman
#design #ux #ui #interface #calendar
This is inspired by a macOS app that I use frequently. That app, called DateDiff (or Date Difference Calculator), was the product of some old Apple sample code from ~2012. More info in this Twitter thread.
It was fun iterating on the screen layout for this.
Fitting all my functions into the app was also great fun. The system menu can hold three items which was just enough for me to put toggles for years/months/days. The d-pad can control the cursor by day and month. I decided to use the A button to toggle between the to/from dates. And then left the B button as a “shift” or modifier button, allowing the d-pad to change by week and year. The exact arrangement of this took a little experimentation and usage to pick what felt right.
Creating a “simple” screen like this is a great excercise in user interface design. If you think it looks obvious and simple that means I’ve done a good job. But rest assured that it took a good number of iterations over a few days to get there. I encourage you to pick a suitably simple screen or scenario and dive into making it as good as you can, you’ll learn a lot along the way about details and use of screen space.