On Fri, Feb 21, 2014 at 9:22 AM, Thorsten Wilms <t...@freenet.de> wrote: > 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
Some interesting comments there. I like the one about "A..Z" and "Z..A" for alpha, "1..9" and "9..1" for numeric, "1..12" and "12..1" for dates. Perhaps "Jan..Dec" and "Dec..Jan" would make it easier to read, but I think it's leaps more descriptive than arrows. cheers, -- alecu -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~unity-design Post to : unity-design@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~unity-design More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
