4 ms·

It took me a while to work out what (11/16) meant. I've seen some bizarre way to write dates, but this is just random. I know it's space limited, but why not "1

It took me a while to work out what (11/16) meant. I've seen some bizarre way to write dates, but this is just random. I know it's space limited, but why not "16th Nov"?

granfalloon 13y ago
do you mean that its placement in the sentence is bizarre? or the fact that it's written "11/16"? the month/day format is very common in the US...i'd say it's the default for most people, actually
- pavelludiq 13y ago
  (I'm not from the US) My brain pattern matched it as two numbers that have some relationship with each other, but It didn't even occur to me that it was a date until I visited the page. If it was written 16/11 I might have gotten it(the bigger number on the left makes it unlikely that it's a ratio of some sort which is how I read it intuitively). But what if it was 5/11 or 11/5, still no idea what it means without context. If it said "on 11/16" I would get that it's a date, but it would still take me slightly more energy to figure out which is the month as I don't associate the right number with the day, but the opposite. Keep in mind, if I look at it for more than 2 seconds I will figure it out, but if I need to spend more than a fraction of a second parsing a date, you have a UI problem.
- ash 13y ago
  For non-American it's not even clear what is it. Some fraction? Time? Street address? Okay, let's suppose it's a date. Is it 11-th month of year 2016? Or November 16th? In this case we are lucky that the day was <= 12. E.g. 11/12 could mean December 11th or November 12th.
- thejosh 13y ago
  US population: 313.9 million (2012) Estimated people in the world: 7.124 billion. US is the only country using MD, isn't it? So most people, perhaps not.
  - anywherenotes 13y ago
    I have a thing about when actual numbers get used. The thing is the website is in English, so it does not target 7 billion people. It only matters what percentage of target audience can process the message, and it's targeting professionals, so not even entire 300 mil population of US. Basically I think about 300 mil and 7bil numbers are wrong in determining if it was OK to use US-format. I am not saying you are wrong, I agree that spelling out November would make it clear, but just that the numbers quoted are not representative of who will see the site.
    - thejosh 13y ago
      That's actually a really good point, especially with the target audience of HN. What were the results of the previous "where are you from?" ASKHNs? Not doubting US is the top audience of the site.
tinkerdol 13y ago
11/16 is very clear to someone in the U.S., and very confusing to anyone else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1179/ http://xkcd.com/1179/ edit: actually, according to my first link, Belize, Canadian newspapers, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Philippines (when speaking English, although not Filipino), and Palau all also use the month- day- year date system. TIL!
- graeme 13y ago
  We Canadians proudly have no consistency. I've seen all of the following used: 13/11/16, 11/16/13, 16/11/13 And by proudly, I mean we don't even realize the rest of the world handles this marginally better. Even official forms have no consistency.... As it is, I didn't interpret 11/16 as being a date. I thought they needed five out of 16 interviews.
- imrehg 13y ago
  Hungarian checkin in, 11/16 = Nov 16 very clearly, as for those others in the "big endian" areas, though at least in full form it's 2013/11/16, not the (to me crazy) 11/16/2013
ryanSrich 13y ago
I find it fascinating that this isn't recognizable to you. For some reason I associate a high second number with a day, unless it's a on a credit card form. It's strange how context changes how I perceive the date. Where are you from? How do they represent the month day?
hfsktr 13y ago
Even though I'm in the US and that's the date format I know it didn't occur to me that was a date. Had it been 'on 11/16' or a having the year would have been a dead giveaway. I think the combination of not having 'on', being right after another number, and being in parenthesis made it unfamiliar.
troels 13y ago
Well, in this particular case, it's clear that it's month/day, since there are only 12 months in a year, but otherwise concur.

It took me a while to work out what (11/16) meant. I've seen some bizarre way to write dates, but this is just random. I know it's space limited, but why not "16th Nov"?

granfalloon 13y ago

do you mean that its placement in the sentence is bizarre? or the fact that it's written "11/16"? the month/day format is very common in the US...i'd say it's the default for most people, actually

pavelludiq 13y ago
(I'm not from the US) My brain pattern matched it as two numbers that have some relationship with each other, but It didn't even occur to me that it was a date until I visited the page. If it was written 16/11 I might have gotten it(the bigger number on the left makes it unlikely that it's a ratio of some sort which is how I read it intuitively). But what if it was 5/11 or 11/5, still no idea what it means without context. If it said "on 11/16" I would get that it's a date, but it would still take me slightly more energy to figure out which is the month as I don't associate the right number with the day, but the opposite. Keep in mind, if I look at it for more than 2 seconds I will figure it out, but if I need to spend more than a fraction of a second parsing a date, you have a UI problem.
ash 13y ago
For non-American it's not even clear what is it. Some fraction? Time? Street address? Okay, let's suppose it's a date. Is it 11-th month of year 2016? Or November 16th? In this case we are lucky that the day was <= 12. E.g. 11/12 could mean December 11th or November 12th.
thejosh 13y ago
US population: 313.9 million (2012) Estimated people in the world: 7.124 billion. US is the only country using MD, isn't it? So most people, perhaps not.
- anywherenotes 13y ago
  I have a thing about when actual numbers get used. The thing is the website is in English, so it does not target 7 billion people. It only matters what percentage of target audience can process the message, and it's targeting professionals, so not even entire 300 mil population of US. Basically I think about 300 mil and 7bil numbers are wrong in determining if it was OK to use US-format. I am not saying you are wrong, I agree that spelling out November would make it clear, but just that the numbers quoted are not representative of who will see the site.
  - thejosh 13y ago
    That's actually a really good point, especially with the target audience of HN. What were the results of the previous "where are you from?" ASKHNs? Not doubting US is the top audience of the site.

tinkerdol 13y ago

11/16 is very clear to someone in the U.S., and very confusing to anyone else: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Date_format_by_country relevant XKCD: http://xkcd.com/1179/ http://xkcd.com/1179/ edit: actually, according to my first link, Belize, Canadian newspapers, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Philippines (when speaking English, although not Filipino), and Palau all also use the month- day- year date system. TIL!

graeme 13y ago
We Canadians proudly have no consistency. I've seen all of the following used: 13/11/16, 11/16/13, 16/11/13 And by proudly, I mean we don't even realize the rest of the world handles this marginally better. Even official forms have no consistency.... As it is, I didn't interpret 11/16 as being a date. I thought they needed five out of 16 interviews.
imrehg 13y ago
Hungarian checkin in, 11/16 = Nov 16 very clearly, as for those others in the "big endian" areas, though at least in full form it's 2013/11/16, not the (to me crazy) 11/16/2013

ryanSrich 13y ago

I find it fascinating that this isn't recognizable to you. For some reason I associate a high second number with a day, unless it's a on a credit card form. It's strange how context changes how I perceive the date. Where are you from? How do they represent the month day?

hfsktr 13y ago

Even though I'm in the US and that's the date format I know it didn't occur to me that was a date. Had it been 'on 11/16' or a having the year would have been a dead giveaway. I think the combination of not having 'on', being right after another number, and being in parenthesis made it unfamiliar.

troels 13y ago

Well, in this particular case, it's clear that it's month/day, since there are only 12 months in a year, but otherwise concur.