Needs feedback: Proposal for improving the Dashboard Events Widget

Hello! I’m Ana, active member of the Spanish WP Design team. I’m posting this proposal as part of the feedback of the attendees of the MeetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. and WordCamps I’ve attendeed and organized in the last year. I’d love to hear your opinions about it! 🙂

Deadline:
Please share your thoughts before the following deadline: February 21th, thanks!

Context:
The Dashboard Event WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. (DEW from now on) is a very useful tool that has highly increased the visibility of our local Meetups and WordCamps. Many people get to know these groups, and our community, thanks to this widget, which is great.

Problem:
In the area of Madrid (Spain), and around other big cities with dozens of official WP meetups, we usually have more than 5 meetups of different MeetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook. groups every month, in a radius of 50 km. Most times, we can’t see our own next meetup event next week because a few days before the Meetup groups in the nearby cities have other meetings.

– Proposed solutions: Modify the DEW for:
a) Showing the next 5 events by default. Just that would be an enhancement, as it was requested here: https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/3592

b) Even better: Show the next 5 events by default, and let the user decide how many events want to see.

c) Even even better!: Divide the DEW into two widgets: the Events Widget and the News widget separately. This way, the news will have their own space for its public, and the Events widget would show the next 5 events by default and it’d allow the user to choose the city and the number of events they want to see 🙂

Here’s a quick mockup that I’ve done with the proposal c):

Proposal c) for improving the user experience and the visibility of more local events in the Dashboard Events Widget

Feedback!
Now it’s your turn! Please answer the following questions to help with this proposal:

  1. Have you experienced a similar problem as described in this post?
  2. Do you think this improvement is needed?
  3. Which one of the 3 proposals would be better: a), b) or c)? or do you have any other proposal?