How to signal something on capacity indicator

Feedback & Problem Solving
#1

Hi All,

I’m designing a scheduler which displays how someone is busy per certain period of time. That’s how it look now:
image. These colors and percents and size say how much capacity is taken off a translator’s overall capacity per, in this case, a week.

On some of these bars I need to indicate that during the week a translator has, e.g. 2 days off. I need to be able to see this from a month’s perspective. So I’ve got a scheduler that’s divided into 4 weeks represented by 4 columns. Each column has a bar that shows how many percent of his week’s capacity he’s busy. But I need to be able to clearly indicate that during this business there are vacation days.

I cannot simply tell the system to calculate capacity including days off because of the industry’s specifics. Vacation is a different kind of information than being busy with projects.

I had an idea to put an icon there which symbols time off/vacation. Something like this:
image

The problem is the contrast. I cannot get good contrast keeping the three staatus colors (these are design system colors). Blue is a new one but I already spent more than hour researching different shades of blue and none fits.

Do you have any ideas how could I solve this issues differently?

I’ll be vert grateful for any kind of help.

#2

I like the idea of showing icons, since it’s a good idea to have a different indicator than just color (for our colorblind friends).

A few ideas:
Find a neutral color to use to signify that the translator is not available during that stretch of time. For example, grey. I would try a lighter grey that would contrast with the deeper colors.

Have icons such as boxes with X’s through them, indicating unavailability.

I am trying to think of other ways people are indicated to be unavailable due a time. Such as in outlook, Out of office on a calendar is purple. Any other thoughts on analogous indicators?

Best of luck! Hope to see what you use or other ideas.

Thanks,
Marie

1 Like
#3

at my agency, for capacity/resourcing, we use https://www.getharvest.com/forecast

you can do a free trial and maybe see how they tackle the same problem?

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#4

Thanks a lot but we have already picked a plug-in. Choice of the plugin is not the problem. How people in industry work is a problem :stuck_out_tongue:

#5

I think the suggestion was to see how it is handled in that plugin.

I agree with Marie. I’d look for a light grey.