Displaying time and timezone information to the user (what, not how)

Question

(This is a question about the UI rather than the technology required to do it)

What is the clearest way to display a time for events occurring in different timezones

Answer 1

I think this cannot be answered definitively absent a particular application. For example, in an intranet application for all users in the same timezone, you can often omit the timezone completely. For a stock market application, you may want to make the time relative to the timezone of the market. For a social web application, you may want to make the time relative to the user's timezone. I think the general principles that would apply are:

1. If there is a possibility of confusion you should always specify the time zone
2. You should work with your users to find out how they want the time to be displayed.