Design suggestion on handling time zone issue | Help Center | Doit.im

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Design suggestion on handling time zone issue

PRO

zmfile01 04/12/2014 19:13

Platform:All

I noticed that doit.im struggles a lot with time zone issue. I see that the current design of handling time zone issue is quite flawed in the following way:

1) The client version (desktop, ios, android) all has non-bypassable popups. 2
2) There's no way to take care of the timezone problem inside the app (other than logging into the web version)
3) There're day light saving in US (unlike China) so time shifts twice a year, meaning all the users will face this annoyance regardless of whether they've set the time zone correctly or not.

Actually, there may be better ways to handle the time zone issue, without potential mismatch of server / local time. One possible design suggestion for handling time-zone in different platforms:
* use GMT standard international time to store all tasks
* according to the user's login location, render the time differently
* this location-aware display rule applies to both mobile, desktop and web.
* give user choice to change time-zone setting in app
* automatically align the time once user logs in (from any device, any platform app). So instaed of popping up the user of time zone difference, you automatically correct it and render it correctly

zmfile01 post on 04/12/2014 19:19#1

PRO

Above when i mention "align the time once user logs in", i mean the app could read the time on the device as it is already doing so, and then automatically matches the local time with server time to render it correctly. This should be the default behavior instead of asking users to adjust time zone every time there's mismatch between local and server time.
wendy_only post on 04/14/2014 10:38#2

PRO

@zmfile01
Hi,

Thank you for your feedback and your detailed suggestions. Now the apps could read the time on the device.
Do you mean that Doit.im should automatically changed the time zone according to the app as the app could read the time on the device which must be correct?
zmfile01 post on 04/14/2014 16:51#3

PRO

Yes that's correct.

As I said in the post above, the handling of time at client side is to shift the GMT time stored in server and any RESTful data protocol to a local time format, so once you read the time on the device, you compare it against the server time (GMT) to figure out how to render the time format. Any new tasks created with time information will still be stored in GMT format at server side. In this way, there should be no time-zone issue at all.
wendy_only post on 04/15/2014 07:08#4

PRO

@zmfile01
Hi,

Now we use GMT standard international time to store all tasks.

We will use the time zone according to the app if you registered with the app. If you registered on web version,you need to set the time zone by yourself.

The time zone in our app is following the device time zone. You can change the Doit.im time zone on web version. We do not support it on all platforms as it is not a feature that you will always use.

We will consider it seriously to change the Doit.im time zone automatically according to the app as the app could read the time on the device.

Thank you for your support!

Best regards,
Doit.im Team