SavvyCalSSavvyCal
Oct 14

Reduce occasional confusion about first day of the week

SavvyCal currently attempts to infer the scheduler's conventional "first day of week" based on the locale setting in their browser/OS (Sunday vs Monday). Unfortunately, the locale does not always align with their actual location (if, for example, they set their OS to be "en-US", but they're not actually in the US). This causes our inference to sometimes not align with expectations. It may be necessary to try other location inference methods, such as geolocating IP address. --- Original post: Currently, the default setting for calendars shows Sunday as the first day of the week, which is familiar in the US but less so in other regions where Monday is commonly seen as the first day. This can cause confusion for users outside the US who expect Monday to be the start of the week. To improve the global user experience, it would be helpful if the default start day of the week adjusted based on the user’s region, similar to how time zones are automatically detected and set. For example, if the time zone is outside the US, Monday could be set as the default first day of the week.
CompletedCompleted
Dec 3, 2024

For the moment, we are rolling with our current detection scheme + darkening the weekends (to provide an additional visual cue).

Nov 12, 2024

For starters, we've shipped some extra shading on the weekends to help differentiate it from weekdays (h/t Csaba Rakasz)

Nov 10, 2024

I had one more event, where I could actually confirm that the event scheduler did not intend to schedule for Sunday, but they were "tricked" by the Sunday shown as the first day of the week. Their location South Africa. Of course I have other calls when the scheduler just didn't show up. It is hard to tell whether it was because of the "first day of the week" confusion or just a regular no-show. I did notice a higher number of no-shows on Sunday, which makes me think more people get tricked by this. I would appreciate your attention to this issue, as this might even be a bug.

Nov 10, 2024

Csaba Rakasz: oof, not good, sorry that happened! Interestingly, South Africa is included in the list of countries that use Sunday as the conventional "first day of week" (according to the Unicode CLDR database). The solution here might be to try to more strongly call out the day of week to hopefully alleviate confusion (especially when it's Sunday or Monday). On a separate note though, we are currently inferring where the visitor is based on their browser/OS locale, which might be skewed toward western countries (if folks are setting their browser language to en-US, for example). Going to look into what it would take to use different method for location inference, like locating their IP address.

Nov 10, 2024

Derrick Reimer That would be great Derrick. Thanks. My browser is set to en-US as well, even though I am located in Hungary.

Nov 10, 2024

Derrick Reimer I also have a suggestion for you. You could color Saturday and Sunday with a slightly darker color. This is a well recognized sign of the weekend days. So even if the default first day of the week calculation didn't work well, or the user got confused, these additional clues, could offer a quick feedback to the scheduler about what day they are looking at. Just a quick thought ;)

Nov 10, 2024

Csaba Rakasz: I like it!

Oct 14, 2024

Hey James Weber! This should actually be happening already. We auto-detect locale from the browser (OS) settings and derive the first day of week from the Unicode CLDR mappings. Have you heard confusion from schedulers?

Oct 15, 2024

Derrick Reimer Hi! I am experiencing the same problem. Yes. I heard from clients that they scheduled calls for the "first day of the week" without even looking, and later turned out that the first day was Sunday, even though they thought it was Monday. I also checked on my own system, and I access a link I have in an incognito window, or regular it shows Sunday as the first day of the week even though I am in CET, and location is set to Hungary (where Monday is the first day of the week).

Oct 15, 2024

Csaba Rakasz: Thanks, we'll have a look! Aside from Hungary, do you happen to know the countries for the folks who have expressed confusion?

Oct 27, 2024

Derrick Reimer I tried several locations using VPN and the first day of the week never changed. I also tried several browsers and the first day of the week never changed for me either using my own set up from Hungary.