[Design] Don't we not need Sort?

[Ashkan Soltani]

There is one argument for sort which is allowing for 'browse type'  
functionality.  Google/Gmail's approach is very search-heavy,  
requiring you to query for what you're looking for, and then  
iteratively modify the query until you find what you what.

For more 'vague' queries where the user doesn't know exactly what  
they're looking for, sort tends to be helpful as it lets you order  
items by a field such as date or sender, then browse until you see  
the item you want.

IE: "I sent an email to someone earlier in the week about cars".  ->  
Sort by date, browse to that time period, then look for words like  
cars, which actually could have been the word 'automobile' in the  
subject line.

IE: "Where is that email by that guy Joe? John? .. something starting  
with J" -> Sort by sender, etc.

I agree that for most tasks, sort may not be critical.  However, I'm  
a big view of manipulating/ordering/filtering my information via  
different views until I discover what I want.

My $.02
-a


On Jun 2, 2006, at 10:31 AM, Mimi Yin wrote:

> Heh, so what I really meant by 'no sort order' was sort by Triage  
> status, aka 'Sort by how I want to focus on my information'
> :o)
>
> On Jun 2, 2006, at 9:46 AM, Jeffrey Harris wrote:
>
>> Hi Mimi,
>>
>> In the world of filters, I never sort by anything except date or  
>> date +
>> thread, I agree that sorting by who and stamp don't seem crucial.
>>
>> The summary view will still need a sort order, so what you're saying
>> isn't going to save us any architecture work, it just might imply a
>> different interface design (which is of course the point of this  
>> list,
>> so that's great).
>>
>> Sincerely,
>> Jeffrey
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