Re: [Usability] HIG: Fixing the sort arrow direction guideline

[Calum Benson <Calum Benson Sun COM>]

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.

(In such cases, there may well be a secondary sort key, such that the  
checked 'group' is sorted alphabetically, then the unchecked group,  
but the user doesn't normally have direct control over that...)

Cheeri,
Calum.

--
CALUM BENSON, Usability Engineer       Sun Microsystems Ireland
mailto:calum benson sun com            OpenSolaris Desktop Team
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Any opinions are personal and not necessarily those of Sun Microsystems