I am designing a web app in which the data is stored in time order. Users can browser different kinds of appointments in daily or weekly calendar view.
When you click on the current date, the overlay gets displayed on top, (hiding the current date).
The problem with the arrows are, The arrow between "TUE, May 7, 2013" is a toggle for a day jump, Whereas in the arrows between the overlay "May 2013" is a month jump.
The design on the left is a minor tweak of the current design, which it doesn't overlap. The problem I found was that the two sets of arrows function differently, and are visible at the same time. The solution was to display the arrows on top, so there is always only one set of arrows showing at a time.
The second design is a little more tweaked, displaying the arrows in different order/ format (perhaps design too) so that people don't confuse their purposes.
My favorite is the last one - the current date does not have a set of arrows to quickly go to a previous/next time duration. The only way to navigate is through the overlay.
Last, but not least, we have the option to remove the calendar picker tool completely (not shown on wireframe), and users can only navigate using left and right arrows (similar to iOS Calendar or Google Calendar).
What's your opinions on these resolutions?
Do people find left/right arrows more convenient than date picker?
Most users will access the current week's 7 days to do the task on the app, and going back to the previous or next 7 days from the current day is mostly for reference only.