← Back to team overview

unity-design team mailing list archive

Re: Let's talk about sorting arrows

 

On 02/21/2014 11:08 AM, Sam Hulick wrote:
I don't think A-Z is guesswork. Other operating systems and several apps
have already laid out the fact that an arrow pointing up is ascending
order, an arrow pointing down is descending order.

The fact that you talk about the indicators as arrows already demonstrates part of the problem. An arrow shows direction, but how does it relate to the reading/writing direction implied by the list, and what comes first? Small or large, newer or older?

The other interpretation of the indicators is that of triangles, with a tip that stands for the start of the sorting alphabet and for small.

Even if you start from the terms ascending and descending, it's not obvious what that means for dates (time-since-then vs numerical value).

I think this is somewhat representative of what an incredible strong consensus ;) can be found about the issue:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/338166/which-direction-should-the-arrows-point-in-a-sorted-table

As little as it might be worth, my personal experience of over 20 years of often intensive computer use: In the heat of the moment, I still can't remember how triangles or arrows relate to sorting order and always scan the list to see what it is, right now.


--
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/


Follow ups

References