Summary of Preview Pane discussions and Proposals

• Several people report a bug because they are confused with the Preview Pane's inconsistent behavior across App areas. In the Calendar app, it is stuck showing Today's events. In the other App areas, it shows events for whatever day is selected in the mini-cal: http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2006-March/004298.html
• Mimi takes issue to the list, explaining reasoning behind inconsistent behavior: http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2006-February/004051.html
• Others reply with how they use the Preview Pane in the Calendar App, it is useful for it to be stuck on Today's events, even though admittedly it is confusing at first: http://lists.osafoundation.org/pipermail/design/2006-March/004298.html

Proposals

• Current design: In the Calendar app, the preview pane is stuck showing Today's events. In the other App areas, it shows events for whatever day is selected in the mini-cal.

• Alternate design 1: Make the Calendar app consistent with the other App areas. Add extra visual feedback in the mini-cal so the user can select a day within a week...when they're in the week view, so the user can control which day of the week they want to see in the Preview pane.

• Alternate design 2: In the Calendar app, we add a label: Today's events at the top of the Preview pane.

• Alternate design 3: In all Apps areas, the Preview pane is stuck on Today's events. However, the user can mouseover different days to preview events for those days. (Might be too much interaction feedback. More disorienting than useful.)

*Alternate design 4: Make mini-cal/preview consistent across all App areas. Mini-cal selection constrains what data you see in the Summary pane (Table view or Calendar view). Preview pane always displays Today's events. Mousing over days in the mini-cal changes the display in the Preview pane to display the events from the moused-over day.

-- MimiYin - 14 Apr 2006