Showing days, weeks or months since a given date
I'm writing a mobile app, in which users can record a date for something that happened in the past. On the main screen, they can see the date they saved, and next to it, the number of days since this date.
This is fine, but if the number of days becomes larger, the elapsed time becomes less clear:
I can have access to:
- the number of days since the date recorded (406)
- the number of weeks & days since the date recorded (16 & 6)
- the number of months, weeks & days since the date recorded (3, 3 & 5)
It's fairly easy to imagine switching to the upper unit when it's non-null. For example, 0-6 days, 1-4 weeks, 1-12 months. The issue with this basic approach is that 1 month and 26 days would show up as "1 month" when it's closer to 2.
I could combine 2 units (weeks & days, months & weeks, etc.) but I don't really like this option, given the space it requires (it's a mobile app so I'd like to keep it short).
I understand there's no "rule" regarding this, but how would you handle such a situation ?