Date input: Dropdown or Date picker when planning/decision making

Question

I already searched about this topic but most of them are concerning about birth dates. It narrows down my option to dropdown or date picker only.

Based on the said research I did, it seems that when you are sure or exactly know the date you could get away with a text box that will try to understand your format, mask the input, or even just a simple placeholder instead of dropdown that makes them scroll far or a date picker that makes them look for their birthday.

Now how would you address the issue if the date is unsure? Since you are planning it. Say, booking for a flight.

IMO, a date picker makes sense here as it can make the user browse for dates and see it visually on how far they are already from today and what week is a date.

My current issue is that I am making a form for creating a food menu for the whole week. I am trying to follow the business' pattern. User will most of the time create the menu every Sunday.

Data is in between of sure and unsure. They know what week would it be, but not what date it is.

I originally thought of 2 dropdowns: [week number] of [month]

but someone gave me a thought of a week does not always start on Monday and that a date picker might remind them of that.

I can just actually calculate the Monday date of a week internally so that's not an issue but rather would this affect the user's planning/decision making?

I have a feeling that I might be overthinking this but I want to know your opinions about this.

Answer 1

you can create a single drop down, where the data could be something like:

2nd March-17( 7t week) 9th March-17 (8th Week) 16th March -17(9th Week) ...

where as in the drop down menu the placeholder should be selected as the current week Current Week, 23rd March-17(6th Week)

by doing the above not only you will be saving extra clicks, but you will make sure the user is well informed before his/her decision.

N. B. : Considering you are calculating Mondays and plan will be done for Monday to rest of the week. (as you mentioned in the question)

Answer 2

Could you use a date picker that highlights the entire week when hovering over a day and when the day is selected?

Or if you want the user to specifically click on Mondays (or whatever the legitimate start-of-the-week day is), then perhaps you could make your date picker emphasize (by highlighting, by using boldface, etc.) and allow clicking on only allowed days.