On Sun, 2009-05-17 at 08:58 -0400, Celeste Lyn Paul wrote: > For those who want to know more about this proposed change, here is a common > rational for the arrow position in Windows, Mac, and the web: > > v users perceive arrow as bigger on top so the list should contain the > "biggest" items first (decreasing, e.g. reverse alpha, 10-1) > > ^ users perceive arrow as smaller on top so the list should be sorted by the > "smallest" items first (increasing, e.g. alpha, 1-10)
Personally, I have always found the GNOME standard to make sense. I perceive the triangle as an arrow telling me a direction. If it is treated as a depiction of the actual items, then it feels un-natural (e.g. an earlier date corresponds to a shorter bar, or a word at the end of the alphabet corresponds to a longer bar). The idea of mapping the smaller and larger concepts onto non-numerical things seems like the sort of thing that makes complete sense to programmers, but is adding an extra level of abstraction. Obviously, this is a sample size of one, but I've never thought that the symbol was unclear. Andy _______________________________________________ Usability mailing list [email protected] http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/usability
