We have a calendar page in our web application that displays appointments (we know all users and train them), optimized for the following use cases:
- Add a new appointment (by clicking the time)
- Change an appointment's status (by clicking its status - the status will change in a cycle-wise fashion)
- Edit an appointment for all further actions (by clicking the appointment's title, resp. the name of the person marked for that appointment)
From training our users, I know this setup to be unintuitive at first ("this looks complicated"), but efficient in the long run. I am contemplating changes to make the system more self-explaining, especially to non-technical users.
Currently, the calendar looks like this (it is possible to have multiple appointments at the same timeslot, like at 14:45):
One gripe are the status links. These are AJAX and double-clicking will change the status twice before redrawing. Hovering (or clicking?) a status link might show a menu with available status - do you think this is easier?
Finally, one might do away with all links on events and have a single menu appearing:
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Thank you very much in advance!