[Sigia-l] Arrows and Sort Order

[Pradyot Rai]

> "Salvador Pardo" wrote:
>
>> I think that it doesn't matter so much whether the user will interpret
>> the arrow as descencing or ascencing first time, the point is to

Cognition and semiotics of the symbols are the classical challenges for
visual designers. This issue of using the 'arrows' to sort the list has a
background in how we order a list. Many a times semiotics is much more
complex. For instance, the use of 'arrows' in this case is primarily used
to indicate the direction of the 'sort', however it is also a fact that
user may have had time to remember it and associate every next time he may
use it. But undoubtedly the use of this symbol on the header is not always
a waste or confusing. It does serve as a very important role of telling us
which column is sorted.

Cognition is not always pragmatic, or perceived by the active mind. In
this case, the symbol gets settled in sub-conscious level of users mind
and helps him in interaction. This kind of cognition is similar to that of
the "yellow strip on the left side on the roads (in US)" - we often not
see it with full consciousness , however, it leads us to believe that we
are following the right side of the driving lane. This is often referred
as visual cue and works fine as user adopts to the system.

As  Salvador Pardo said
> it doesn't matter so much whether the user will interpret the
> arrow as descencing or ascencing first time”

It would surely gets registered somewhere. For the visual designers, it is
a challenge to use symbols which makes sense from the ‘context’ and are
already established ‘patterns’. And having said this, ‘Arrows’ (up /\ for
ascending and down \/ for descending) is the widely used symbol for
sorting the list. However, as ‘Ziya’ pointed out, it only works fine for
data which are ‘alphabetic’, ‘numeric’ types. But the data such as showing
‘priorities’, ‘ratings’ etc. this may not work and have adverse effect in
telling the context to the user.

Similarly, sorting for many entities such as  ‘Categories/hierarchies’,
‘units’ or any such other entities may not be appropriate to sort them by
applying ‘ascending/descending’  (‘alphabetically’ or ‘numerically)’
rules.  To give you point to ponder, consider “Netscape Messenger”
interface. The rules for sorting are following - by ‘Date’, ‘Flag’,
‘Priority’, ‘Sender’, ‘Size’, ‘Status’, ‘Subject’, ‘Thread’, ‘Unread’,
‘order received’
 and take a good look, as not all the sorting rules are
same so is not the ‘use of arrows’ to sort as ‘de facto’ standard too.

In brief - arrows works for a particular sorting ‘rules’, but it may not
be applied to all the ‘sorting rules’. And what are the other ‘sorting
rules’? -  is the challenge to visual designer to figure out from the
‘requirements’ or from the ‘data sets’. And if you miss it at the design
stage, usability tests may definitely try to discover the cognitive
friction.

I would like to invite more people from ‘cognitive psychology’ to take
shot at my view or correct my remarks.

Pradyot Rai
eBusiness, Fannie Mae
Washington, DC 20016-2892
office. 202 752 1855
Cell.   240 472 0432
Fax.    202 752 7501