Desktop vs Mobile - Date Picker

Jake Charlson

This is a fairly minor annoyance, but one that I get feedback on from respondents somewhat frequently.

On a mobile device when you click in a field to enter a date, a date picker window pops up and lets you tap on the calendar to select a date while, on desktop, you have to manually type in a date.

Manually entering a date is one of those things that everyone just puts up with, but no one really likes.

It would be really great to have a date picker window pop up on desktop as well or, alternatively, have a button that says something to the effect of “select today’s date”.

I honestly don’t pay a lot of attention to what day it is beyond monday, tuesday, wednesday, etc. - I just wrote 2021 on a document yesterday…  That little calendar popup saves me a lot of mental energy when needing to enter a date on a form like this and would help to improve user experience.

Thanks!

Make no small plans.

11 replies

Jake Charlson

 

Make no small plans.
Liz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Hi @Jake Charlson Apologies for missing this last week! Thank you for sharing - I’ll pass this along to product. 😀

Life is a series of awkward moments separated by snacks.
E

Hi guys - anyone figured out how to disable this date picker? 

 

Liz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Hi @Elliotrorororo I don’t believe there is a way to disable this since it’s based on the browser, but @mathio might be able to confirm. 

Life is a series of awkward moments separated by snacks.
mathio
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

@Liz I believe a date picker for desktop (native or custom) could be considered as a feature request. Please forward this to the respective team.

E

Hmmm we have tried with every browser and its the same thing?? and only on android pads? 

Liz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

Hi @Elliotrorororo Every browser shows the date picker differently. 

Life is a series of awkward moments separated by snacks.
R

So speaking on behalf of my users who are on average 70+ years of age. It becomes impossible to select their birthday on mobile. I have now created 2 forms where 1 form is just a short form and then I send the extended form to their inbox with hopes that they access it via desktop. Still annoying. Hope this use case helps to give some flexibility. typing numbers in is not hard and given just the birthday use case, I feel like maybe you can give us the option as to whether or not the calendar is displayed? Also knowing that you’re using the respective browser’s calendar, maybe going with numbers can actually reduce some frustration? I know this is probably for B2B SaaS sales teams booking demos and all, but maybe there’s a case to be made for accessibility for older people to navigate? One senior told me he actually clicked the button to go back in months until he got to the 1950’s.

 

Feature pretty please? 

Liz
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

@mathio do you happen to know, when having a field like a date field, are we able to adjust how the calendar is shown on a mobile device (ex, calendar or date entry)? 

Life is a series of awkward moments separated by snacks.
mathio
Rank
Userlevel 7
Badge +5

I am afraid the date picker displays each browser / platform native user interface.

@Liz I do think this is a nice accessibility feedback and we should forward this to respective team.

@richardw as a workaround, maybe you could build the datepicker yourself? I know this is not ideal, but maybe you could build a form to ask each part of the date separately (year, month and day)? It might result in better UX especially for older respondents not efficient with technology. Something like this:

 

R

yeah, that’s what I’ve defaulted to. 

Reply


Still need help?

Don't be shy and ask the community.

Ask your question here!
Community T&Cs