[Design] Should dashboard display order change immediately after edits?

Dan Steinicke dan at osafoundation.org
Thu Nov 1 10:29:51 PDT 2007


Currently the display order of summary table rows can change immediately 
after a user completes an edit on an item.  I think this is undesirable 
behavior.  I think the table view should only re-order when the column 
headers are clicked, or in response to the passage of time.

As part of recording a test script I wanted to select each item in the 
table from top to bottom and add a 'X' at the beginning of each title.  
I found this operation difficult to do because regardless of which 
column I sorted on (I tried Title, date, and task) at some point the 
table would re-order in response to my edits.  I find this automatic 
re-ordering very annoying behavior and find it hard to believe most 
users would want the table to behave this way.

I think this also ties in to the end user confusion around the "Triage" 
button.  I have always thought it would be much more intuitive to just 
have the triage column header button do what the "Triage" button now 
does.  In my understanding the main function of the "Triage" button is 
to prevent row reordering when you change the triage state.  If rows 
only re-ordered when the headers were clicked then it would seem we 
would be able to simplify this work flow as well. 
        
Are there users out there who like the automatic re-ordering in response 
to edits? 
Are there users out there who are annoyed by the dashboard re-ordering 
in response to edits?      

Dan  


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