Service will be 'unavailable Saturday' vs '...unavailable on Saturday' [duplicate]

Question

I want to perfect this system message the most I can and am over-thinking the use of the proper words.

Is it better to say "Email will be unavailable Saturday 12/29 from 5 PM to 9 PM" or "Email will be unavailable on Saturday 12/29 from 5 PM to 9 PM."

Our client chose the message so I don't want to alter it too much which would make him think his English was bad, but I wish to use the proper way of letting the users know WHEN Email will be unavailable.

So is it 'unavailable Saturday 12/29' or 'unavailable on Saturday 12/29'?

Answer 1

So is it 'unavailable Saturday 12/29' or 'unavailable on Saturday 12/29'?

and

Our client chose the message so I don't want to alter it too much

It does not need to be corrected - both are fine for a system message.

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For what it is worth, I would use "unavailable Saturday 12/29".

According to some Computer Human Interaction (CHI) articles I've read, you should generally use the "shorter is better" rule with system messages because the user is more likely to read a shorter message.
(This does not imply that they are likely to read them).

The advice assumes that the shorter message is as clear as the original - which applies here.

Answer 2

Depending on the context, you may need to alter the email part.

For the sentence part, the correct way is:

Email will be unavailable on Saturday 12/29 from 5PM to 9PM

Usually when talking about days of the week, we say we are on this day.