On Mon, 2009-05-18 at 17:53 +0100, Calum Benson wrote: > On 17 May 2009, at 13:58, Celeste Lyn Paul wrote: > > > Also, the language "natural" order is very strange, does the GNOME > > HIG mean > > "logical" order? There should never be a table that isn't sorted in > > some way. > > Usually a good default is the first column is increasing by default > > unless > > there is a better column to sort by. > > "Logical" is probably a little better than "natural"; the main point > the HIG is trying to convey here is that it doesn't always mean > "increasing". E.g. sorting a checkbox column, the goal is really to > group the items in the list such that (usually) all the checked items > come first, then all the unchecked columns. There isn't really any > "increasing" or "decreasing" order.
Having the checked items come first is inherently neither "logical" nor "natural". In some circumstances, that might feel "right" and "defaulty" to have the checked items first; while in others the opposite might easily be true. Shall we conclude that one of these instances should have an arrow pointing in one direction when the checked items are at the top, while the other should have an arrow pointing the opposite direction when the checked items are in the same position? I would hope the answer is "no"; but it seems to me that unless the HIG comes out and says, "checked-items-first corresponds to a(n) [ascending| descending] sort," that is the logical outcome. FWIW, having checked items listed first strikes me as a descending sort order. In addition to the fact that that is mathematically accurate if the checkbox is treated as a boolean value, the notion of important things first corresponds, generally to a descending order; e.g., having the heuristically "heaviest" items at the top, or ordering by the newest date first. Notwithstanding the above, I do agree it is the case that, some of the time, there is not an intrinsically obvious ascending sort order. But I'm very skeptical of what I perceive to be your claim: that in such cases there may be an intrinsically obvious (or at least reasonably apparent) "natural" or "logical" ordering. Fortunately, such cases are not the most common. Most of the time, the field that one is interested in sorting on has a readily apparent alphanumeric nature; and thus a similarly obvious ascending sort order. Just because there exists a checkbox field in the row doesn't mean a user is *likely* to want to sort on that field; and that does diminish the importance of the sort indicator associated with the field. In fact, I suggest that if there truly is no apparent ascending sort order, one should consider omitting the directional indicator altogether. -- Braden McDaniel <bra...@endoframe.com> _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list Usability@gnome.org http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
