Suggestion: add the states and provinces of the world as if they are cities.
Sometimes you know the person you're scheduling is in California/US, Alberta/Canada, or Bahia/Brazil. But since those are not cities they're not coming up in your location search.
Just came back from a concert to x10 traffic on world time buddy, which tracks back straight to here :)
Really glad to see a lot of positive feedback - thanks guys! The UX indeed took a long time to get right (?), with multiple (failed) versions over a couple of years. Simple things are hard to make.
Love the suggestions/ideas as well. Will consider for upcoming features.
Can folks elaborate what they mean by "slow". Feel free to do so in private, over email -- [email protected]
P.S. Why didn't I think of posting here myself? :)
I've thought about a vertical UI like this for the last 2 years but was never happy with the html mockups (my last mockup: http://www.txtlabs.com/tzs/), so I know this UI is hard to get right.
Suggestions:
- simple buttons for next/previous day & today
- make date boundaries more prominent
- speed - do everything in JavaScript - site should become purely static as a nice bonus
- drop-down of ordered timezones as an alternative entry option
Question for HN: how would you monetize a simple site this? ads? or not at all?
Take a look at http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com I think the interface is a bit cleaner, plus they include states and countries as well as cities. This site is also the result of HN's weekend challenge.
It looks pretty slick but interestingly WorldTimeBuddy was easier for me to understand immediately (having never seen either before).
WorldTimeBuddy doesn't take any effort to see what the time in each zone is, for any time in the next few hours. I also default to thinking in hours (not minutes) for these, which WTB presents by default, but with EveryTimeZone almost all clicked positions have to be adjusted to get an on-the-hour line. I can't really figure out how to add my city (or if it's possible). So, personal view - ETZ shows a lot of 'cool stuff' but doesn't really solve my problem as well as WTB.
Nice! I love this! Integrate Google calendar and I'm thrilled.
Another suggestion: make the available hours darker and the night hours lighter. My eyes were drawn to the dark spaces, and it was easier to visualize the overlaps when I was looking at the dark spaces.
I agree that the current colour scheme makes the night time hours stand out more than the daylight ones, but I would suggest perhaps a different approach - darken the background so that the daylight hours have more contrast and the night hours blend in more. This would solve the problem of your eyes being drawn to the darker spaces while still keeping the more expected display of daylight hours having light colours and night hours being darker.
You've got a great visualization concept of time zone scheduling, which is worth a lot. But the UI alone as a stand-alone web app is easy to replicate and not very sticky. As a next step I would build a plugin for Google Calendar and Outlook using the same data visualization concept. This would help users figure out which times to suggest for a call with someone in a different time zone, and they would be able to generate an invite right from the plugin. Then I would introduce scheduling interaction between users through the plugin. For example if user A uses the plugin to suggest a time for a call with person B in a different time zone, person B would benefit immensely if he/she could not only accept/decline but also see what other times are available purely from a time zone perspective (ideally also taking into account other appointments that user A has). This would increase stickiness and virality while also allowing you to establish a business. Not sure yet whether contextual advertising using call subjects or a subscription model would work better.
Come to think of it, this is all pretty trivial but I had fun thinking about it. Good luck!
Love this so much. Please add a Mac OS widget and iCal/Google Cal support. Something like Rapportive raplet maybe. I know this is wishful thinking but I actually think this will be useful to a whole lot of people.
This is a really good app. I talk and do business with clients & contractors in California, Romania, India and Philippines and it is often very difficult to schedules meetings that are reasonable for myself and the other party.
Thanks for this! Good UI good performance. Good inspiration!
[+] [-] sivers|15 years ago|reply
Sometimes you know the person you're scheduling is in California/US, Alberta/Canada, or Bahia/Brazil. But since those are not cities they're not coming up in your location search.
[+] [-] danohuiginn|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pitdesi|15 years ago|reply
Also, the "delete" function looks like a red square in my chrome version, which puzzled me (although I see that you meant a red X in my Firefox)
[+] [-] djsla|15 years ago|reply
Really glad to see a lot of positive feedback - thanks guys! The UX indeed took a long time to get right (?), with multiple (failed) versions over a couple of years. Simple things are hard to make.
Love the suggestions/ideas as well. Will consider for upcoming features.
Can folks elaborate what they mean by "slow". Feel free to do so in private, over email -- [email protected]
P.S. Why didn't I think of posting here myself? :)
[+] [-] felipe|15 years ago|reply
BTW, that's a great UI, much better than timeanddate.com (which I normally use)
[+] [-] divtxt|15 years ago|reply
I've thought about a vertical UI like this for the last 2 years but was never happy with the html mockups (my last mockup: http://www.txtlabs.com/tzs/), so I know this UI is hard to get right.
Suggestions:
- simple buttons for next/previous day & today
- make date boundaries more prominent
- speed - do everything in JavaScript - site should become purely static as a nice bonus
- drop-down of ordered timezones as an alternative entry option
Question for HN: how would you monetize a simple site this? ads? or not at all?
[+] [-] weezer|15 years ago|reply
Here's the author's experiences http://www.thetimezoneconverter.com/weekend-challenge.html
[+] [-] udp|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ljf|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Cherian|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] richardw|15 years ago|reply
WorldTimeBuddy doesn't take any effort to see what the time in each zone is, for any time in the next few hours. I also default to thinking in hours (not minutes) for these, which WTB presents by default, but with EveryTimeZone almost all clicked positions have to be adjusted to get an on-the-hour line. I can't really figure out how to add my city (or if it's possible). So, personal view - ETZ shows a lot of 'cool stuff' but doesn't really solve my problem as well as WTB.
Again, not related to either project, YMMV, etc.
[+] [-] onwardly|15 years ago|reply
Another suggestion: make the available hours darker and the night hours lighter. My eyes were drawn to the dark spaces, and it was easier to visualize the overlaps when I was looking at the dark spaces.
[+] [-] morganpyne|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ericmoritz|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] darklajid|15 years ago|reply
Added 'Adelaide, Australia'. Obviously the creator of this neat site was way ahead of me though. Really, really helpful, thanks!
[+] [-] pkarbe|15 years ago|reply
You've got a great visualization concept of time zone scheduling, which is worth a lot. But the UI alone as a stand-alone web app is easy to replicate and not very sticky. As a next step I would build a plugin for Google Calendar and Outlook using the same data visualization concept. This would help users figure out which times to suggest for a call with someone in a different time zone, and they would be able to generate an invite right from the plugin. Then I would introduce scheduling interaction between users through the plugin. For example if user A uses the plugin to suggest a time for a call with person B in a different time zone, person B would benefit immensely if he/she could not only accept/decline but also see what other times are available purely from a time zone perspective (ideally also taking into account other appointments that user A has). This would increase stickiness and virality while also allowing you to establish a business. Not sure yet whether contextual advertising using call subjects or a subscription model would work better.
Come to think of it, this is all pretty trivial but I had fun thinking about it. Good luck!
[+] [-] Killah911|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aymeric|15 years ago|reply
The scenario I had in mind was when you work in a remote team and you want to know if you can chat with them or expect an answer soon.
[+] [-] tuhin|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] telemachos|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryancarson|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Klinky|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] helipad|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kennethologist|15 years ago|reply
Thanks for this! Good UI good performance. Good inspiration!
[+] [-] kopos|15 years ago|reply
- Day / date boundaries can be more intuitive - Day and night too
Can you tie this up with skype (as a small quick plugin), Google Calendar and MS Outlook?
[+] [-] dmoney|15 years ago|reply