Weekly food menu creation. Date problem

Feedback & Problem Solving
#1

Currently I do single menu creation like:

Single Creation

But I would like to follow the business’ pattern to improve the usability. Every Sunday, they are posting the menu for the whole week (except weekends) so I thought of doing this:

Multiple form group

The problem with that is the form got bigger and user might get intimidated.

I could have do Accordion or Wizard instead to make it a bit easier

BUT the label/header that specifies what day is the form group for will not make any sense anymore by having Availability field.

AND without the Availability field, how would I handle the dates? Even if I assume the order of the days by adding 1 from the previous group of form I’ll be needing the week of the month I’ll be making the calculations from.

#2

Hi Jenina (and welcome),

Really happy to help, but I don’t quite understand what you mean here. Are you concerned about the ambiguity of the label if the field content isn’t visible?

#3

Hello. What I would like to do is follow the business’ pattern.

(Currently without the system) They would post the menu for the whole week every Sunday.

I would like to have 5 form group (consisting of 2 dropdowns for Lunches and Dinners) that represents food menu from Monday to Friday.

Having an “availability” field on each form group would make the separation useless. Example: in Tuesday group, the user put a date that is Monday on the ‘Availability’ field.

I could use a date picker that may restrict the dates say… Mondays only on Monday group, but what if the Monday the user selected is Monday next week?

I could remove the ‘Availability’ field and just assume that Tuesday group would be +1 on Monday group’s date, Wednesday would be +1 on Tuesday… so on but I’ll still be needing what week and month to do this calculation.

This problem has been solved on UX Stack Exchange with 2 options: https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/104719/weekly-food-menu-creation-problem

Have a single ‘Availability / Week starts on’ field that is either:

  • a date picker that shows only Mondays
  • 2 dropdown: one for Week number and another one for Month

Note on 2nd option: in case the week of a month doesn’t start on Monday, just calculate the week of the month’s Monday.

And now I’ll just be needing an opinion: which of the 2 options is better?

  • A date picker that shows Monday only seems the easy way since it only asks for 1 value.
  • 2 dropdowns will make the user select 2 values but you could place a default value on each and is more specific but needs to process what that week’s Monday internally.
#4

hi @jendimacapili

it’s not easy, to me, to understand what’s the need(s) you want to satisfy with such feature.
Do u have a user flow to share?

I was just thinking about something like that:

3024×4032 1.89 MB

#5

Ok so here’s the revised flow with ideas I got from UX SE.

Instead of having an “Availability” of a menu for each day, I will only be having one that will ask when it will be available. Here’s why: Link to image (Does it make sense now?)

I decided on going for a Wizard with the following steps:

  • Availability starting on
  • Monday Menu
  • Tuesday Menu
  • Wednesday Menu
  • Thursday Menu
  • Friday Menu

Monday Menu up to Friday Menu step will be having 2 Multiple value Dropdowns: Lunches and Dinners.

From and To is not possible to do as the food menu will always be from Monday to Friday.

From will always start on Monday and To will always end on Friday.

Currently, the food menus are planned/posted every Sunday by the clients.

Now I could either just be with a date picker or 2 dropdown (Week number) of (Month) but since I already asked it here I would like to hear your inputs.

Imagine you will be planning/creating a menu for the coming week and future weeks… would your rather have:

  • A date picker that has Mondays only being selectable
  • Two dropdown that asks what week and month it will be available? Something like: [Week 1] of [February]

Is it clear now? or still blurry?

#6

that’s the reason why I would expect a date-picker fly-out customised according to such rule.
Providing a couple of date-pickers helps users to understand how to fill the form. Hiding the days that are not available (in your case Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays) so users can extend the availability of a menu for more than one week.

With the multi-selector for the weekdays, you are already explaining to the user that the feature can create menus only for those days.
I am just wondering if is helpful for your users to have the chance to duplicate (or copy) a menu and to extend the availability of a menu.

I hope it will be up to your alley

#7

With the multi-selector for the weekdays, you are already explaining to the user that the feature can create menus only for those days.

The main issue is what week is that set of Monday-Friday is? Week 1 of January? Week 4 of February?

Hence 2 option:

  • A datepicker that only has monday as selectable.
  • 2 dropdowns asking for [week number] of [month]

I am just wondering if is helpful for your users to have the chance to duplicate (or copy) a menu and to extend the availability of a menu.

I think the business does not do/need that. They just post it on Facebook once and that’s it. To make it short, not worth the extra work really.

#8

I strongly prefer this one, as far as I understood the main entity is the week, it does no matter at which month belongs. Some weeks are belonging to two months

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#9

Some weeks are belonging to two months

That is why I also thought of a date picker. To let them see that.

I agree with you as I have the same thought also, but I asked that I might have a missed a point or something. Would that fact somehow might affect the user’s decision making/planning?

Thanks for the input. I’ll be going for dropdown but I’m still open for changes in case others have a better points.

#10

cool!
Keep us posted on that :wink:

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