While we would all like to imagine a world where authors submit their proposals well before the submission deadline, the harsh reality is that a good number of them wait until the very last minute to click the Submit button.
Of course, ProposalSpace displays the submission deadline prominently at the top of every proposal and, if the deadline is less than a week away, also displays a notice with the time remaining:
While this is helpful, we’ve had a few authors mention that they felt cheated out of a few minutes because their computer’s clock wasn’t in sync with the “official” clock on the server, leading them to believe they had more time than they actually did.
To make sure everyone is on the same page (er, clock), we’re making some adjustments to the time-remaining notice and adding a countdown timer so everyone knows exactly how much time is left for them to submit their proposal.
Here’s how it works:
If the submission deadline is more than a week away, nothing changes. In other words, the deadline is displayed but no notice indicating how much time is left is displayed.
Starting one week before the deadline, a notice is displayed at the top of every proposal showing how much time remains—in days, hours, or minutes. This is the same behavior as before, but the notice has been styled differently to make it a little more prominent:
If under 30 minutes remains, the notice changes to a countdown timer that indicates the official time remaining (based on the server’s time, not the time on the user’s computer). The style of the notice also changes to draw attention to it:
When the submission deadline passes (i.e. the countdown timer reaches 0:00), one of two things happens:
If late submissions are not allowed, the Submit button is removed and the message indicates that submissions are no longer being accepted:
If late submission are allowed, the Submit button remains and the message changes to indicate the new deadline for late submissions:
We’re not making any wagers that this new feature will result in authors submitting their proposals early, but at least now they’ll know precisely how much time they have left to work with. 🙂
