Website Design Event Calendar [closed]

Question

I have a registration website for an upcoming event. I have a link (itinerary) on the page that takes them to another page showing them the itinerary for the event. The problem is, I don't have anything there yet. It's a three day event and I need a good design idea on how to display the itinerary for the 3 days for the user. I've thought about using Google calendar but it doesn't really play well with the theme of my page, which is dark. I've been searching everywhere (dribble, jQuery plugins, etc.) but no luck. Does anyone have any good ideas on a nice design for an events calendar?

Answer 1

It depends on the kind of event you're helding.

Usually, an event like this needs a one-off design - it's not that it cannot be done procedurally (like with a jQuery plugin), but as it's unlikely to be modified after the initial upload, it's fine to create it as a static page.

A simple table or even a list would do, depending on the breath of a conference.

Usually, such an event has 3 main dimensions:

• the day
• the hour
• the room

and together they define a session.

A session has the following arguments:

• topic
• participants
• description (if exists)

A big question is, wether the participants are more important than the topics themselves. For example, if you invite famous people who speak, it doesn't matter sometimes what they're speaking about.

Here's an example.

Usually, vertical gutters ("cell-borders") should be larger than horizontals (as topics within a room have more to do with each other than topics at the same time), and perhaps the cellpadding should be larger than what's seen here as well.

Please note: dimensions are clearly maintained: downwards is time, leftwards is space, in size of scale and importance.

Some people say it's an unnecessary information overload to present programs of 3 days on a single page, so you could create a tabbed menu out of it:

The visuals can be literally designed in Excel.

Interactivity

What kind of interactivity is needed? Depends on the topics.

Here I created a simple detail balloon instead of listing them inside the table. Please note, sessions have to show clickability then.

Users may also subscribe to / bookmark an event, perhaps filter them with keywords.

Perhaps, if the site is connected to facebook, it could be shown if my friends signed up for a given session.

Linkability

A website is a hyperlinked, navigatable place.

Usually navigation exists for:

• Session participants (with a little bio)
• Detailed session page (if needed)
• per room, per day filters (more for festivals)
• tags (if you do tag the sessions)
• similar sessions (can be filtered by tagging)
• A map of rooms (if needed)

I hope this helps.