Designers, programmers, managers,
Lets say You have an App in which after you have completed a demographic search you are to pick at least 3 Cities that begin with the letters "Mel" from anywhere in the world. The search report display output contains 1,000 cities in no particular order.
Question: How long would it take flipping from page to page on your phone or tablet to locate those 3 Cities that match your criteria?
If you could take the time loss multiplied by the number of similar apps multiplied by minutes wasted multiplied by total number of people using apps like these then you're going to be talking about major league waste of time and effort.
Question: Allow those same cities to be sorted in Ascending order. How long will it take now? You get the picture.
Such an extreme example is to illustrate a somewhat bothersome trend in recent application design. That after a team or individual has gone through all of the time and trouble of creating their masterpiece of an application that they abandon the final phase which involves presentation of their output/display data from in an unruly, unsorted mess thereby doing their clients, customers, fans and themselves a major disservice.
The productivity hit from wasted time can be major.
Designers, programmers, managers please remember that computers are meant to bring order and harmony into our lives not disarray and hardship. Adding suitable sorting controls and filters can help do that in a major way and lends itself under the category of best practices.
The people who use your apps on a day to day basis will be ever grateful for your thoughtfulness.
Your comment appreciated.
T.
Lets say You have an App in which after you have completed a demographic search you are to pick at least 3 Cities that begin with the letters "Mel" from anywhere in the world. The search report display output contains 1,000 cities in no particular order.
Question: How long would it take flipping from page to page on your phone or tablet to locate those 3 Cities that match your criteria?
If you could take the time loss multiplied by the number of similar apps multiplied by minutes wasted multiplied by total number of people using apps like these then you're going to be talking about major league waste of time and effort.
Question: Allow those same cities to be sorted in Ascending order. How long will it take now? You get the picture.
Such an extreme example is to illustrate a somewhat bothersome trend in recent application design. That after a team or individual has gone through all of the time and trouble of creating their masterpiece of an application that they abandon the final phase which involves presentation of their output/display data from in an unruly, unsorted mess thereby doing their clients, customers, fans and themselves a major disservice.
The productivity hit from wasted time can be major.
Designers, programmers, managers please remember that computers are meant to bring order and harmony into our lives not disarray and hardship. Adding suitable sorting controls and filters can help do that in a major way and lends itself under the category of best practices.
The people who use your apps on a day to day basis will be ever grateful for your thoughtfulness.
Your comment appreciated.
T.
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