Brown Out

TITLE: Select Date

BUTTONS: Close

Snarky comment: I've seen my share of poorly designed date-pickers in my day, but this one takes the cake. It's all about the colors here.

What's wrong here?

1. The calendar looks unbalanced—because it is. The columns are only as wide as their respective headings. A slightly wider box or a slightly smaller font size for the day of the week could have avoided this. And a smaller font size for the weekday might have also looked less...amateurish.
2. Contributing to the imbalance, the Select Date heading isn't centered properly.
3. Future dates look disabled, while dates in the past look selectable. Better: reverse the colors used to differentiate past and future days. Further differentiating the current day would also help.
4. How do you navigate to the next month? Keep looking. Find it yet? OK, look more closely. Black chevrons to the sides of the month and year are so cloaked by the brown background, they're nearly imperceptible. Better: Light (preferably white) chevrons.
5. How many ways can you close a calendar? Since this one opens in a separate browser window, you have three options: close the window, click the (letter) "x" in the top right corner, or click Close. Overkill.

Source: Dolce International reservations