Mon-Sun Calendar format

I find the Monday-Sunday calendar format to be rather annoying. Being in the US, it doesn’t match any calendar layout that I use (Sunday–Saturday format). As such, it is much more difficult to glance at a calendar to verify dates. If you didn’t want to make a global site change, could you at least make that layout optional on a per-user basis?

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Sorry @DanJfromOK I dont agree. I like the Monday to Sunday calendar layout. I guess it’s horses for courses…

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Funny, I hadn’t even noticed the format. But yeah, the Monday-Sunday format they use in Europe always looks weird to me. And I often get messed up if I don’t look up at the top to see the days of the week. In a perfect world, we could choose what type we want. Ah well.

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@DanJfromOK I’m afraid this will fall very low on the list of priorities for THS.

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I am sorry,USA, but it seems you are the exception, not the rule :grinning:

The ISO (international standard 8601) considers Monday as the first day of the week. The countries that observe Monday as the second day of the week are the US, Canada, and Japan. I found this article that might be helpful to explain this into more detail.

I’m guessing that Israel also matches the US, Canada, and Japan. I wonder who created the “international standard” that 4 major countries don’t adhere to?

This is a completely reasonable request, and even if most people do it one way, hundreds of millions of people do it the other. THS is a very international site/app, and localization is a critical part of any such service. Currency, date formats, measurement units, timezone, thousands separator, and so on. Ethiopia even uses a completely different calendar. In most cases, localization happens without the user knowing; they see the information the way they’re used to seeing it and don’t realize that other users see the same information presented differently.

From a programming perspective, it’s not difficult at all to display a month-view calendar in Monday to Sunday versus Sunday to Saturday format.

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Hello @mahkato This is my personal opinion. Many - or even most - forum members have reasonable requests and/or suggestions. I believe that many of the changes THS puts into place are in part driven or supported by member ideas. However, regardless of whether a change is difficult or not (as in labour-intensive), it still requires labour and a place on a priority list. I imagine that the THS to-do list is often extensive and requires ongoing reprioritizing. Just as importantly, most of us recognize that any increased labour costs for any business inevitably get passed along to members in the way of increased fees.

As a sitter for many years, I have seen growth in my skills of being flexible and resourceful. I am also far more adaptable and tolerant, and can therefore easily adapt to various calendar layouts, for example. No doubt I have a preferred one, like most people, but I also keep in mind my preferred cost of membership. I can adapt, and do adapt, and am grateful for all that THS does to provide a good platform for the core business of listing sits and sitter profiles.

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Sure, I get prioritization of requests, as well as the danger of feature-creep that leads to a bloated product and expensive-to-maintain codebase. The dev team has to find a balance. This feature request by @DanJfromOK is clearly not a must-have, but its relative simplicity (compared to other feature requests) may mean that it can be implemented at low cost. If a (very) mild annoyance for 10% of the users can be corrected with a few hours of dev time, it may be well worth it. It’s not like it’s going to be a deal-breaker for anyone (“I’M NOT USING THS UNTIL THEY FIX THE DANG CALENDAR!!!”) so maybe it will never happen.

@mahkato We can all see things from different directions, and I do see your point. However, I think of my day-to-day life, where something distracts me from my planned task ‘because it’ll only take me a minute’ … and then I wonder where my day went, and my core task remains unfinished. :slightly_smiling_face: Anytime the product team is side-tracked, the priority things that have been identified are then delayed, creating frustration for many members. I just accept that the product team read the forum, and other sources of input, and make well-informed decisions. :slightly_smiling_face:

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I have just looked at my calendar to see what all the fuss is about. I never noticed before what the day layout was.
I agree with @Snowbird , we cannot expect changes for the very small minority.

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Well well well… I just agreed to my first sit, then in follow up messages with the HO, we both discover that her sit listed as “Sep 3-6” is actually 2-5. Another victim of the international calendar format!

If there are .5 billion people around the world who use one format, and 7.5 billion who use the other format, the very small minority is 15% of your users.

Regardless, you definitely can ask for changes for a “very small minority”. For example, most web sites are designed to be accessible to those who are blind, but if you aren’t blind yourself you may not know that. Anyone who sees a calendar in a format they are not used to (and perhaps have never seen before) is going to be at best mildly annoyed and at worst have a trip miscommunication which could cost them real time and money.

Is this a big problem in the grand scheme of things? No. Should it be fixed? Definitely, when the dev team has the opportunity. It’s obviously not the highest priority, but it really should be on the list of things to fix eventually.

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Victim??? of the INTERNATIONAL calendar format implemented on the INTERNATIONAL website???

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I did a quick look around the web. Found one other similar site based in France. Their calendar format is Sun-Sat (at least for me, with a US IP).

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Fixed how? By changing it to Sun-Sat format? No. International websites targeting international audiences should follow international practices. That doesn´t necessarily mean local practices should be totally ignored. If there is demand, they can be incorporated into the existing international system, e.g. by letting users choose the day they want their week to start. Google calendar style.

startweekon

If people get annoyed by seeing things they´re are not used to — too bad. It´s been at least 40 years since information technology has been accessible to the masses. Time to join?

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So the majority , 85% or 93.4%, would have a change implemented from one that they like and/or have got used to?

@RadarInc and @Itchyfeet: The site can tell what country you are visiting from and automatically switch to the calendar format (and date format, currency format, language, etc.) that’s most commonly used in that country. There can also be a user account setting allowing people to choose if they don’t like the default for the country they’re in. Ideally, everyone worldwide would see the format that they expect to see, and they wouldn’t even know that the site is being localized for them. THS already does some localization, so this would just be in addition to that.

@SandC, yes sorry.

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US homeowners please pay close attention to your listing dates. We confirmed two sits yesterday and after further discussion we found out that both had incorrect starting and ending dates because of the owners did not pay attention to the UK calendar format, where the week starts on Monday not Sunday. We were able to accommodate one date change, but had to cancel the other sit which was a shame because we were looking forward to it.