Android app filtering UX problem - How to combine tab filters with date filters?

Question

I hope to get some help for the following problem..

I have a following ux:

It's pretty standard Android Material Design style toolbar. User can search entities, and also filter it by swiping between the tabs (All, Old, New).

And I am quite happy with it so far...but, now I have to include also a filter for time period, and that creates a bit of mess.

If I put filter bellow the tabs, it looks like they locally apply, only to selected tab (and that is not the case).

So, my question is - what is the best way to solve filtering in this case?

Should I abandon the tabs and just go with the filters for all?

Answer 1

I think you're creating a problem prematurely. Do you have any reason to suspect that users will want a way to filter dates more easily? Do you have research showing that is in fact the case?

If so, the first recommendation would indeed to be to remove the sorting options in favor of filtering options, purely for ease-of-use. Then again I'd recommend you make that choice based on what users use more, though from the look of it this app isn't out yet, so it becomes a question again of what does your research point to as the more important feature for users?

Purely guessing as to the purpose of this app (journal app), it's highly unlikely that users will instantly fill it out and within even weeks have trouble finding a particular entry, so filtering options seems like a bit much this early. Further, if you decide that you need it, you do have enough space to add a fourth tab just for that purpose, where you can include a dropdown/selector for specific filtering options that users can select.

Answer 2

I think you can have three tabs.

1. Recent
2. All
3. Specific Date Range(You can frame better text for it)

Here Recent lists all most recent invoices grouped by some quick filter button. Like - Last 2 hours, Today, Yesterday depending on the rate of incoming invoices and need.

All lists all the invoices.

Date Range - Have some filter buttons here as well. Allow users to chose from predefined date ranges like today, last 2 days, last week etc. And allow the users to chose a specific date range. Don't have a date entry text field, rather a widget which opens the calendar widget so that it becomes easier for the user to chose the start and end of a specific date range.

Let me know if you need more detailed explanation.