Feature integration: Mass deletion in Google Calendar
case study · 5 min read
Clearning timeblocks efficiently and intuitively
The Constant: Google Calendar offers many useful features, and continues to evolve and refine its UI over the years.
The Challenge: There is no ability to clear a day (or a week or a month) at a time. If you have a busy calendar, clearing 8 or 10 events from a day over the course of a week (or month) is terribly time consuming.
Process
User research and synthesis, ideation, prototyping, interaction, usability testing
My Role
UX/UI designer
Tools
Figma, Figjam, Miro, Mural, Optimal, Google Workspace
Duration
12 weeks
Sep 2025 - Feb 2026
The goal:
Create a feature that allows the clearing of multiple events in one action, while simultaneously addressing any common filter requirements along the way.
Reducing the Tedium of the Busy Calendar
Intuitive UI: A clear flow that anticipates user needs to reduce anxiety.
Accessible to the novice, useful to the power user: allow users to remove a specific set of meetings (e.g., clearing a work week for a "staycation") without manually deleting them one by one, while preserving other events like personal appointments or tasks.
table of contents:
Research:
In our modern digital landscape, choosing a calendar solution often depends on balancing ecosystem loyalty with specific functional needs. While all major platforms (Google, Apple, Zoho, and Outlook) provide seamless native integration within their own environments, they diverge significantly in flexibility and niche tools. Google, Apple, and Zoho are the preferred choices for users requiring robust third-party synchronization, whereas Outlook distinguishes itself with specialized bulk event deletion and deep integration into corporate business infrastructures.
I used the following research methods to generate a strategy and confirm brand identity:
● competitive analysis
● user interviews
● affinity mapping
● exploring opportunities through POV & HMW
statements
● developing user personas
Competitive analysis findings
Comparing Google, Apple, Zoho, and Outlook calendars, I focused on functional capabilities like bulk management and 3rd party interoperability, highlighting how each tool anchors into its respective software ecosystem,
User Interviews:
User interviews reveal several key findings about user interaction with Google Calendar and highlight significant opportunities to expand its capabilities.
01
calendar usage & preference
02
technical and set-up details
03
feature utilization
Participants: 5 interviewees, representing a diverse range of ages (32-46), demographics, and professional backgrounds, including project management in biotech, health services research, writing, and tech support.
While our subjects were encouraged to share as much as they felt comfortable about calendaring process, I focused on the following topics:
04
unfulfilled needs and pain points
05
unexpected discoveries and desires
Synthesizing Goals:
Interview insights:
● A significant finding is that three out of five interviewees identify as neurodivergent with ADHD. This heavily influences their calendar use, often leading to a need for external organization, visual cues, and specific features to manage focus, memory, and task completion.
● Many users struggle with work-life balance and actively seek to maintain boundaries between professional and personal life, sometimes resorting to separate devices or strict non-engagement with work calendars at home.
The challenges of information overload and balancing personal vs professional needs with also suggest opportunities: design interventions that integrate intelligent filtering into mass deletion, allowing users to specify criteria such as event color, type (e.g., "ignore all doctor's appointments"), or recurrence status (one-off vs. series) when clearing events.
Feedback was organized into the following headings:
Interface and Usability
Organizational Tools and Visuals
Multi-Calendar Management & Collaboration
Mobility and Platform Integration
Differing priorities, identities, and values significantly influenced digital calendaring needs for each of the subjects, with mobility, accessibility, and intuitive UI emerging as common considerations.
Through user interviews I developed a primary persona to represent our key demographic, which I call “The Organizer”:
Pain Points:
Lack of Mass Event Management: The calendar lacks a function to mass delete multiple, one-off events within a specified timeframe (e.g., clearing a week for vacation), requiring users to delete each entry individually.
Inconsistent User Experience: There is a lack of feature parity and a consistent interface between the desktop and mobile versions of the application.
Poor Cross-Platform Interoperability: Users are highly frustrated by the inability to seamlessly sync or view free/busy times with other major calendar systems (Outlook, Apple), which forces manual scheduling and reliance on third-party tools.
Frustrations with Smart Features: Users experience issues with the auto-population of event details (e.g., defaulting to old dates instead of the current one)
Ideation:
I aimed to address the first of these pain points through a defined user flow.
User Flow for Google Calendar Mass Event Deletion
User Flow: navigating from the opening page to successfully cleaning a block of events
Design:
I began by prototyping at the most essential level, first sketching, then developing basic wireframes, and developing a more dynamic wireframe flow
The home page became the main feature, a central point allowing users to keep a pulse on their planning. It served as a central hub for all planning tools, and offered a visual playground for users to explore.
Designing the wireframes revealed how critical it was to make the vendor layouts concise. With options for choosing location, demographics, or social value, there were too many opportunities for cognitive overload. Through several iterations, I condensed the process into a streamlined layout that provided an efficient (and ideally, delightful!) way to sort vendors.
Hi-Fi wireframes: round 1
here, I embarked on usability testing through four basic task flows, observing 5 users as they interacted with my product
Users responded positively, but there was room to improve the UI.
I tested the concept with 5 participants who had experienced wedding planning. All of my participants liked the idea of a simple “block system” of vendor sorting and a chronological timeline tool that sends notification. However, critical feedback focused on the clarity of the UI design- and it turns out all five of my users are neurodivergent!
features that worked:
were reported to be accessible and consistent in terms of sizing and tone, which contributed to a purposeful feel.
The layout of several sections were found to be compelling and clean, and the overall aesthetic was appreciated by every user, who offered compliments on the design, unprompted.
reported user experience issues:
All five users suggested various fixes to address accessibility pain points (buttons were either not “buttony” enough, or TOO “buttony” and disorienting).
Two users requested that the homepage better clarify cuffed’s social networking integration and the range of its ai wedding planner.
Final Design:
I undertook a design that streamlined my user’s needs, looked beautiful, and created an environment that users want to “play” in.
gamification of wedding planning was also a feature; users requested a variety of tools in a clean presentation.
cuffed:
final user flows
Vendor Search
Inspirational couples search
Customizable timeline tracker tool
Interactive Prototype:
The cuffed experience
Wedding planning for everyone else.
Click below:
Reflection:
Future Innovations and Growth Opportunities
Bringing cuffed to life was a deeply rewarding experience. I was pleased to see where business tools and user needs intersect to support passionate couples as they plan their weddings. It was exciting to gather user research and implement it in real time; fostering smart product design to empower couples to create unique, meaningful experiences that reflect themselves and their communities.
It was rewarding to think about the identity of my product through branding and tone and generating a space as unique as my users. Looking forward, I’m considering what other elements might make the difference between a usable space and a user-joyful space; I want cuffed to be irresistible, and make people feel good just to be there.
I’m curious how I can make the process of wedding planning more streamlined for users; with more time, I would like to explore how cuffed might serve the landscape of both couples and wedding planners, perhaps connecting planners with couples in a marketplace for hourly consults. There also presents opportunities to cultivate a social network-style space, where couples who have recently been married can socialize with couples still planning; to share tips, hacks, and perhaps even participate in a trade/buy-nothing marketplace.
Overall, there is considerable untapped potential for growth in non-traditional wedding planning, and the opportunities continue to present themselves as our users grow, evolve, and develop in social and environmental awareness.