Test Card
We believe that people who already use digital calendars will be willing to share at least some calendar information with a scheduling app like ours, especially if they’re given control over what is visible and understand that access can be limited or revoked.
To verify that, we will ask participants whether they use a digital calendar, whether they would allow a scheduling app to access it, and whether they would prefer limited-sharing options such as specific days/times, certain calendars, or free/busy blocks instead of full, detailed access.
And measure how many participants say yes, no, or maybe to calendar access, how many are willing to upload a week-view screenshot of their next 7 days during survey submission (to ensure follow through), how comfortable they feel sharing that information on a 1-5 scale, and what conditions they say would make them more comfortable. The survey also checks whether people who are hesitant would prefer manually entering events instead.
We are right if a meaningful portion of participants (the majority) are willing to share some form of calendar information, and if responses show that partial/controlled access makes people more comfortable than giving full calendar access right away.
Detailed Experiment Design
Assumption Test Google Drive Folder
Who I Recruited and Why
I intentionally recruited people with very different calendar habits so I could test this assumption across a range of real behaviors instead of only hearing from students who already rely on digital scheduling tools. Since our hypothesis was about whether people would let us see into their calendars, it was important to include people who use digital calendars religiously and people who didn’t use calendars at all. Doing this allowed me to better understand how openness to calendar access changes depending on someone’s existing habits, comfort with planning tools, and level of structure in their daily life.
I recruited Celine because she uses Google Calendar, but only for major commitments and important busy time blocks rather than every detail of her life. She was a helpful participant because she represents someone who is already somewhat comfortable with digital calendars but still values selectivity and doesn’t treat her calendar as a complete record of everything she does. Her perspective helped test whether moderate digital calendar users would be open to sharing access.
I recruited Mahi because she doesn’t use a digital calendar and instead relies on a physical calendar in her journal. I wanted her perspective because she represents a group of people who do believe in planning but prefers an offline and more private system. Including her helped me see whether resistance to calendar sharing comes from not liking organization tools at all, or specifically discomfort with digital access and visibility
I recruited Aidan because he doesn’t use either a digital calendar or a physical calendar. I thought his input was important because he represents the far end of the spectrum, someone who doesn’t currently rely on formal scheduling tools in either format. His participation helped me understand whether people who don’t track their schedules at all would see calendar access as unnecessary, intrusive, or irrelevant to the way they already manage their lives.
I recruited Haley because she uses Google Calendar very heavily and tracks nearly everything in it. She was important to include because she represents the type of person most likely to benefit from or already be comfortable with calendar-based tools. Her response helped me compare how a highly engaged user might think differently from more selective users or non-users.
Artifacts
Final Synthesis
Our main takeaway was that calendar sharing isn’t simply a yes or no issue. Our results showed that willingness to share calendar access depends a lot on a person’s existing calendar habits. The participants who already use digital calendars were the most open to some level of sharing, but even within that group, comfort varied. One participant was fully comfortable sharing access, while another was hesitant and only felt okay with limited sharing. In contract, the participants who don’t use digital calendars were much less aligned with the idea of calendar access in the first place. Overall, this means our original assumption was only partially correct. Some people will let us see into their calendars, but not everyone, and many users would need more control or alternative options before agreeing. Going forward, our final product shouldn’t assume full calendar access is the default and should instead support flexible permission settings and manual entry for users with different habits.
