What Date is it?
Posted: 29th May 2010
Pretty straightforward question; What date is it? Most blogs will show you what date the author has posted their latest article, however this changes depending on where you are in the world, and can be quite confusing for visitors. A little bit of work on your end can make this confusion disappear and greatly enhance your users experience with your website.
“Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak December”. As I so often do, I refer to Egar Allen Poe to illustrate my point. Given the following what date is it?
12/5/10
The answer depends largely on where you are from as there are 3 date formats used around the world
DD/MM/YY: (Used in Europe & Oceania) would make the above the 12th May 2010
MM/DD/YY: (Used in the US) would make it the 5th of December 2010
YY/MM/DD: (Used in Japan) would make it the 10th of May 2012
All of these are correct depending on where your visitor is from, so it makes sense to make this as straightforward as possible.
You will notice that this blog does not provide Dates for posts/updates as I feel my posts have a certain timeless quality, but a more accurate reason would be I haven’t had the time to implement them yet.
When I do implement them you can be certain there will be no mistaking what date a post was made, the simple and elegant “May 12th 2010″ is not open to interpretation. If you can make your users not have to think about the little details you can almost gurantee they will enjoy the rest of their experience with your website.
