I’m just working on a website dealing with javascript local dates/times. Dates/Times are stored as UTC in database and are calculated via date-object (js) to user’s local time zone.
I see that many websites, forums, and platforms don’t use these local times but a countdown-like expression, for example
“posted 1 month ago”, “posted 3 hours ago”, … and so on
Do you think there is any benefit of doing it so instead of showing the local date/time?
It would be very interesting for me what arguments you have for pro and con.
Thanks.
This is mostly a usability issue. If you show local date/time, your users will face the cognitive load of having to figure out the relationship of the time displayed to the current wall clock time.
Personally I think these relative time indications are OK, but you should have them properly localized whenever possible. They drag in some of the less understood I18N/L10N issues like replaceable parameters and singular/plural forms.