Google Calendar has a usability problem that makes content hard to read and therefore distracts the user from getting neccessary information. Since I have been getting a sharp eye for usability issues, I feel responsible to share some of this issues with designers worldwide so they don’t make the same mistakes when designing an application or any kind of user interface.

When you enter your Google Calendar you can see a guest list on the right. The list contains small lists of four different responses:

1. people who are attenting the event (YES),
2. people who are maybe attending (MAYBE),
3. people who are not attenting (NO) and
4. unreplied people (AWAITING RESPONSE).

It looks like this:

On the picture above you can see that there is a repeating horizontal line that limits the type of response and the list of people who have responded on this type. As this seems logical due to limitations of types and lists of people, the visual limitation distracts the user from quickly scan which people are sorted in which group. The result is not knowing who is attending or not at first sight.

The horizontal line might not be the only problem. The same font color (black) for response type and people is also a problem, therefore at least two factors are decisive for possible negative user experience when using this aplication.

My solution would be:

1. use the horizontal line to limit the types of responses
2. use a different colour for the types of responses (YES, MAYBE, NO, AVAITING RESPONSE)

With this solutions the Google Calender ap would be more user friendly and quickly-managable.

Users don’t have time to learn to use everyday applications. They TAKE THEIR TIME when they READ (for example articles) and expect to spend less time when they SCAN (when using everyday aplications). There’s a big difference.

Hope this article was useful.

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