Description

Date pickers allow the user to either select or manually enter a single date.

Usage & Behavior

General guidelines

Structure

Date pickers consist of:

• Date input field. The date can be directly edited here, in the required format. If there is no default date, the input will show a hint text indicating the desired format (for example, dd/mm/yyyy).

• Date picker button. A calendar Icon Button which opens the calendar drop-down.

• Calendar drop-down, which consists of:

  • Month calendar, which allows the user to pick a specific date using mouse or keyboard input.

  • Month and Year selectors, which allow the user to directly select a specific month or year. 

  • Left and Right arrows, which allow the user to navigate backward or forward one month at a time.

States

Date input field

State	Visual
Regular
Hover
Active
Disabled
Read-Only
Error
Warning
Focused
Focused, Hover
Focused, Active
Focused, Disabled

Calendar

• The current day and the selected date are highlighted.

• The calendar may contain dates which the user cannot select. Those dates should be disabled.

• Days from the previous or next month, seen in the first or last weeks, should be greyed out (with the cursor still shown as a hand).

State	Visual
General
Regular (x2 in size)
Hover (x2 in size)
Active (x2 in size)
Selected (x2 in size)
Disabled / Greyed out (x2 in size)		In case of greyed out the cursor will still be shown as a hand.
Today (x2 in size)

Internal logic

• Unavailable days will be disabled.

Interaction

The date can be set either via direct input or by using the controls in the calendar drop-down. Additional keyboard interaction can be found under the focus management section below.

Direct input

• The date picker can have an initial value, which the user can edit at any time.

• When clicking on the text, the relevant input section will be highlighted (MM, DD, or YYYY).

• Once an input section is filled, the highlight will move to the next section.

• On Apply, the date picker field will lose focus (nothing is highlighted).

• The user should be allowed to enter dates in loose formats, where possible. These should be automatically corrected when the field loses focus. For example, 1/3/21 should be auto-corrected to 01/03/2021.

Date picker menu

• Clicking on the calendar Icon Button or any blank space will open the date picker menu.

• The date picker menu will be closed:

  • when a date is selected, or

  • by clicking outside the date picker menu.

Validation and Errors

Please refer to Field Validation page for more information.

A date field with a warning will have an orange border and a warning icon, as displayed below:

A date field with an error will have a red border and an error icon, as displayed below:

Transitions

• A slide down transition is used when the menu opens.

• A swipe transition is used when pressing the left and right arrows to navigate between the months.

Best practices

• Provide a help text which shows the required date format. This will help to prevent input errors.

• When it’s important to go back to the current day, consider adding a Today button.

Accessibility Compliance

Unless otherwise specified, see our general compliance information in Fundamentals - Accessibility.

Focus management

Keyboard	Date picker field	Date picker menu
Tab	Navigates the input section from left to right. When on the last input section, the highlight will move to the next component.	Cycles through the different elements in the following order: Left arrow. Month menu. Year menu. Right arrow. The focused day on the calendar. (By default, this is the current day).
Shift + Tab	Navigates the input section from right to left. When on the first input section, the highlight will move to the previous component.	Reverses the order of navigation described for Tab.
Space	Opens the date picker menu. Removes the section highlight.	When a day is highlighted - Sets the currently-selected date and closes the menu. On month/year - Opens the menu. On right/left arrows - Navigates between months accordingly.
Enter	Applies the date.	Sets the currently-selected date and closes the menu.
Esc	N/A	Closes the menu and returns the focus to the field, without applying any changes.
Arrows	Up - Increases the value of the highlighted input section. Down - Decreases the value of the highlighted input section. Right/Left - Moves the input highlight accordingly.	When a day is highlighted - All arrow keys (up, down, left, right) navigate between the days accordingly. On the last day of the month - Right arrow key will navigate to the first day of the next month. On the first day of the month - Left arrow key will navigate to the last day of the previous month. On month/year - Down arrow key will open the menu.

Design

Zeplin Link	Thumbnail
https://zpl.io/aNXBPk2

Code