77
votes
Is there any research showing whether relative or absolute times are easier for humans to read?
You could also show both formats: 13:35 (2 hours ago)
This way the user could figure out either one easily, depending on what they wanted. You could also allow searching/filtering by either.
- 1,197
60
votes
Is there any research showing whether relative or absolute times are easier for humans to read?
I'm not sure about hard research, but there's a good article from UX Movement:
Absolute vs. Relative Timestamps
When to use absolute timestamps:
There are times when users need to look back on past ...
- 24.4k
53
votes
How can I differentiate duration vs starting time
Format distinction needed
08:15 is typically identified as clock format, not duration.
You could just write (8h) or (8¼h) for duration (see list of fraction unicode chars).
Here is how Google do it:...
- 32.3k
11
votes
Accepted
Should an order tracker timeline be in chronological or reverse chronological order?
Forward chronological order lends itself well to finite amount of data that tells a story. Reverse chronological order lends itself well to (potentially) infinite amount of data that loses usefulness ...
- 1,137
10
votes
Is there any research showing whether relative or absolute times are easier for humans to read?
When you use absolute timestamps, you need to find out which timezone the user is in. This can be a guess based on IP address (which may be wrong) or a setting in the user profile (which needs to be ...
- 449
10
votes
How can I differentiate duration vs starting time
I see there a debate whether the finish time or duration should be displayed and in fact it's not what the OP is asking for. They decided to go for the duration.
So first of all I suggest making it ...
- 3,115
10
votes
How can I differentiate duration vs starting time
6:00 - 14:15 (8hs) - Meeting. (Starts in 2 hours).
The user can easily infer the duration of the meeting from the give time, but you can also display it after the hours. Try not to put descriptions ...
8
votes
Is there any research showing whether relative or absolute times are easier for humans to read?
The choice between absolute (13:35) and relative (2 hours ago) is made depending on the type of content you're browsing. Absolute timestamps are used when your user needs to reference something; sites ...
- 9,801
7
votes
Accepted
How to show that a chart is a zoomed-in version of a different one?
You could just draw a box on the first chart that signifies what area is highlighted in the second like so:
Alot of games use this to signify which part of the map you are seeing on your screen out ...
- 15.2k
6
votes
How to show that a chart is a zoomed-in version of a different one?
A few additional ideas to address your zooming differentiation question:
Instead of an overlay, you could try a preview window with a much simpler version of the chart.
Here is an interactive
...
- 396
6
votes
How can I differentiate duration vs starting time
I agree with a previous comment that formatting would make the distinction clear.
08:00 - reads as 8 o'clock (time)
8hrs - reads as 8 hours (duration)
====
I would, by all means, NOT follow ISO ...
4
votes
Should I layout timelines right to left when localizing for RTL languages?
This question is pretty old, but it still applies. I'm an iOS developer and came across these Internationalization and Localization guidelines:
Types of controls and content that should not flip in ...
- 141
4
votes
Accepted
timeline for desktop and timeline for mobile
Like anything in UX, it will depend on your context. For example, if the data displayed in timeline is about payments, or changes you have made to something (let's say you changed a file in an app, or ...
- 33.9k
4
votes
Should an order tracker timeline be in chronological or reverse chronological order?
I also had this issue on the latest product I worked on and being our most important area of the product we went ahead and had quite a few user interviews to study the behaviour. We came to the ...
4
votes
What is the ideal vertical distance between gaps in a timeline?
Yep, There is a alternative way to display gap in timeline.
In such cases you can use Progressive disclosure
Progressive disclosure is an to maintain the focus of a user's attention by reducing ...
- 1,236
4
votes
Accepted
User design for many items over a time frame
Maybe you could do something like this:
Adding a new dimension to your chart.
- 1,894
4
votes
How to distinguish Time-bound vs One time events in a timeline
I would suggest colour coding different actions that can take place within a timeline and further more instead of a single dot you could also include an icon ( eg paperclip ) and make the tooltip ...
- 4,393
4
votes
Accepted
How to distinguish Time-bound vs One time events in a timeline
Try to use color as well as shape to encode differences.
In your case, you have to distinguish between two categories of events. The more you can take advantage of visual distinctions, the better:
...
- 24.4k
4
votes
How to distinguish Time-bound vs One time events in a timeline
An event that is instantanous is an event which start = end. Therefore, you may be able to show what you want by having your users to understand where is the end and the start of an event (sometimes ...
- 51
3
votes
Alternate to gantt chart
Gantt charts do take a while getting used to, there's no doubt about it. Most of my experience with them has been with Microsoft Project, which is very good at what it does.
One of the things about ...
- 3,816
3
votes
Accepted
How to display multiple timelines vertically?
Presenting a story in a spreadsheet format doesn't create flow. It rather separates content blocks, making it hard to read. And the timeline doesn't look clear, too.
My suggestion is to use more ...
- 22.6k
3
votes
Accepted
How to Create Timeline with Dynamic Start/End Dates
If you want to zoom on a particular range, but still see underlying trends you can use a timeline scrubber below the x-axis.
Highcharts is a well known library that has this component. You can zoom ...
- 24.4k
3
votes
Representing an action which occurred on a previous/next day
Is it necessary for your use case to know how many hours someone worked in a specific day rather than during his shift? In other words, is the value “5h18m” meaningful in your situation?
If no, then ...
- 31
3
votes
How can I differentiate duration vs starting time
Could you not simply just say:
-Meeting (starts; 06:00, ends; 14:15, duration; 8.25 hrs)
Says everything and there's no way to get confused, or are there some other constraints you haven't specified?...
- 31
3
votes
Overtime + 2 other aspects data visualization
It depends on the tradeoffs (and the story you need to convey): You can break the charts into adjacent, separate displays, or change the chart to emphasize relative change over time.
Break into ...
- 24.4k
2
votes
The best way to represent simultaneity in storytelling
As you've asked for a source of inspiration, I would like to share the brilliance of Minard's map with you. Tufte regarded it as the best statistical graphic ever drawn.
It has elements of ...
- 3,420
2
votes
timeline for desktop and timeline for mobile
Vertical Timeline is the best method to show the data in sequence. It is more intuitive for users.
Horizontal method is used when there is image gallery sort of thing is to be displayed so that that ...
- 181
2
votes
What is the best way to represent historical data?
My take on this problem would be:
Provide a list to select one/multiple test cases.
Provide "data-info" filters: what do you want to see mainly in the graph (in order to avoid an unreadable graph ...
- 501
2
votes
Accepted
Which direction gives the best sensation of progress?
Asked a similar question last week. Hope you find this useful.
timeline for desktop and timeline for mobile
As Julia commented it really depends on the context.
- 10.6k
2
votes
timeline for desktop and timeline for mobile
If the goal is to display latest updates, and not the whole story from the beginning, where the whole timeline should be also in focus, and the timeline is quite long, I would rather use vertical ...
- 4,923
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