Stop reading time from OS of users.

Hi,

I'd like to make the suggestion that your forms do not use a user's operating system time zone (locale) to adjust times in a form. I work in PST but live in EST so I've found it more convenient to set my PC to PST. When I go to some forms, like my auto mechanic's Jotform, I find that the form reads my system time and adjusts the times to PST. I used to roll with this, but have had bad experiences with these automatic adjustments because they either confuse the customer (we are thinking local time, not what our OS happens to be set to and don't realize there is an adjustment taking place) or the business (who may see "9PM" but not realize it was in EST which means 6PM PST) or something in between (local times hardcoded in a web site that get adjusted behind the scenes using a user's OS time - feedback sent to Toast).

I know my case sounds like an outlier, but I can imagine the same issue for booking a restaurant for an upcoming vacation or when living on a time zone line (do the thought experiment). I get that it might be an error in the design of the particular form I was using, but I see this adjustment happening often enough on many business web sites that it feels like it is a UX design flaw in the solution.

Most people are pretty good at thinking of time in the locale that they will be in (be it same time zone, vacation time zone, or over a time zone border) and trying to "help" by auto adjusting times simply causes confusion and second guessing. You should opt to have the form operate in the time zone of the business/creator and let the users/customers mentally figure out the proper time.

Thank you!

Hello DW,

Thank you for reaching out to Jotform Support. We appreciate the detailed explanation of your concern and will take it into consideration. I will make a feature request for this, however, we are not able to guarantee an ETA of when this will be developed and implemented.

Let us know if you have any further questions or concerns.