Rolling calendar view - choosing a start date

Question

I'm currently building a web app that allows users to register as course attendees. Obviously, one can't register for past courses, and we would like to prevent registration in courses beyond two weeks from the current day. So, the calendar is constantly "rolling", always showing a two week window starting at the beginning of the current day.

My question is, what is the most intuitive "default" view to show the users upon entering the registration portion of the app?

Options I'm currently considering:

1. A month view of the calendar, with only two weeks of classes showing on it, shown Monday-Friday (weekends are non-bookable)

   • +most familiar layout of dates
   • -wastes space
   • -no visual cues for the course duration
   • -very difficult to handle the end of a month (have to page between two month views)

2. A week view of the calendar, starting at the current day

   • +economical use of screen space (the only historical data shown is from the current day)
   • +can show the relative duration of courses (an hour long course block is vertically larger than a 30 minute block, etc)
   • -seems confusing for the week to start at eg. Thursday Friday, then loop back to Monday Tuesday Wednesday

3. A week view of the calendar, starting on Monday

   • +More intuitive ordering of dates than 2
   • -A lot of historical data is shown on Friday, so you likely have to page at least once to register for your course

4. A list of the events, categorized by course type and ordered by time

   • +Readable and simple to understand
   • -May be a fairly long list of events
   • -Based more on the course type than the time

Let me know if you have any thoughts or suggestions, or if more detail is required. Thank you!

Answer 1

You should go with the simplest design: show only the range of fourteen days, for instance as fourteen boxes. For every day, show the weekday, day, and month (it's important because the range can span across two months).

If you want to go with the "standard" calendar design, show one full month (or two if the range spans across two months) with the non-selectable days greyed out.