4 ms·

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 t

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.

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.