Google Calendar vs. Outlook Calendar: usecases and solutions of scheduling service

Online calendars and schedules are quite popular services in business. There are 2 big players between this type of  software: Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar. Lets test its features and figure out which one is better. As usual these web-services have more than 90% of users need. We will test only main usecases that are familiar for everyone and only in desktop version.

Usecases of an online calendar:

1) User can create, edit and delete task.
Both services have similar process of creating new task - users just select on timetable the time and type a name. The timetable is divided into parts of half an hour.

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

If user want to delete of edit a task he would click on it and choose right options.

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

Users could also use right click of the mouse to manage tasks in Outlook Calendar. There are several useless features like icon and color customization. Also user can send the task to someone using Forward button. We can use this

2) User must be able to share the task with the group of user.
Both services provide the same complicated solution of this usecase. Users must create the task and than edit the task where they could add participants. It is a long way especially if users share their tasks often.

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

3) User must be able to set up notification for a task.
Both services have this feature but they work different. Google Calendar shows a pop-up with reminder but Outlook Calendar make a sound.

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

4) User must be able to repeat a task.
It seems like Google calendar has more easy system. Users can do the same actions in Outlook but it is divided into 3 steps.

Google Calendar

Outlook Calendar

5) Users need to duplicate tasks
Our field discovery shows that users want to be able to duplicate a task. If some event (lunch or the end of working day for example) interrupt the tasks - it would be easy to duplicate one task and set up when users want to continue. Non of calendars provide this feature.

6) Connect with powerful alarm clock
Other survey shows that users that usually forget about important meetings want to setup powerful alarm notification.

Conclusion:
There is no big difference between Google and Outlook desktop calendar features.

A very impressive difference is the price of  Outlook Calendar that comes with Office Pack costs from 60-120 USD per year. While Google Docs and Calendar are free with almost similar features

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Outlook Calendar has more modern UI while Google Calendar use old one. There are several design solution that make Outlook little bit more user-friendly. The calendar manage working time and free time by highlighting them with different color. And also we can show only working days in the window. It could be convenient for people who use calendar only for their job.