Differences in Usability Between Three Date-entry Designs

In this study, we explored the extent to which the design of date-entry fields (e.g., text entry, dropdown, and calendar) interacts with characteristics of the task (e.g., knowing the day of the week, relying on memory) to affect the usability (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction) with which participants complete date-entry tasks for near dates. A total of 1000 participants completed different tasks using one of the three date-entry designs. For some of the tasks, knowing the day of the week was required to provide a correct response. Our findings indicate an advantage of the calendar design over the text entry design in terms of effectiveness and over both text entry and dropdown designs for most tasks in terms of efficiency. No difference across designs was observed for perceived difficulty, with most participants rating all date-entry design conditions as “extremely easy”. Based on our findings, we recommend implementing a calendar date-entry design for near dates, particularly for tasks requiring the day of the week. Future studies can expand these findings by exploring whether the advantage of the calendar design over the text entry and dropdown designs holds for distant dates.