Selecting between an exact date and a range date

Question

I have several form controls on a list view that allow for filtering criteria on certain dates. We'd like to allow our customers to select between specifying an exact date or specifying a date range that the criteria could fall between.

The best I can come up with is making it a two-part form control with the first part as so:

If "exact date" is selected, the radio buttons are replaced with:

If "between dates" is selected, the radio buttons are replaced with:

This definitely works, but feels like a lot of fields. Are there other options that might express the form control in a more compact or simple way?

Answer 1

Some flight ticket searching websites face a similar issue this way:

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The Return input is not actually disabled, when you click it then you can select a date. In your case this might work in a similar way.

The idea in your case is to make one of the inputs valid for both situations. The starting date and the exact date could probably be it. The input for the finishing date is always visible so if left empty it is an exact date, if selected then it implies there is an end date. This way you avoid an extra step of preselecting the radio buttons. Also make sure that there is a way to go back to make the End date input null again.