In my current project, I'd like to filter a list by a date range.
I'm not sure how I should design the interface in such a way that it's as easy as possible to select a range. My first idea was to implement it like this:
Source: http://analyticsapp.com | the target device doesn't have to be an iPhone
However, in most use cases the exact date range is not needed, as the user doesn't know the exact date anyway.
Some use cases & restrictions:
- the further away a date is from the present, the more inexact can the result be. (e.g. it does matter whether it is 7th of april or 14th of april but it doesn't matter whether it's the 5th of january in 2002 or the 25th of january in 2002)
- default range: present <-> present + 30 days
- a precision of a week should be sufficient
I ended up looking for a range slider with a (pseudo-)logarithmic scale which might look like this:
- 12 months ago
- 6 months ago
- 2 months ago
- 1 month ago
- 3 weeks ago
- 2 weeks ago
- 1 week ago
- present
- [same as above]
How would you implement such a date range picker? Would you stick to the classic solution or do you know any different approaches?