Hi,
Joshua makes some very good recommendations. This whole thing also
depends on your target audience. If its financial traders - they are
used to such complexities (not that its a good thing, but they are
accustomed to it), if its general users -especially those of us over
40ish, then vision can become an issue with very small print.
One more thing, if you can get a hold of the Tufte books, make sure you
read and pay attention to his section on "chart junk" - aimed at how not
to do spread sheets. He has quite a bit on that, and its a very
worthwhile read. I like to refresh myself on that from time to time.
Also follow the KISS principle.
best,
'mark
Joshua Seiden wrote:
I would second the recommendation to look at Tufte.
The basic issue here is that grids are easy to implement, but rarely
good for users. There are numerous tactics that you can use to avoid
(or minimize) the use of grids in your applications.
I would start by questioning your first assumption: WHY are you
displaying large amounts of data? Is it because the user needs to see
a large amount of data, or is because you are using one
general-purpose display mechanism to serve many needs?
If the user really needs to see a large amount of data, then I would
move to a graphic visualization. That is usually a better way to
create meaning than a massive grid.
If the answer is the latter, then you should start teasing out the
use cases, needs, and goals, and the begin creating more targetted
presentations to support them. These targeted presentations will
likely require less data, and can then be created without using a
huge grid.
I've used both of these tactics successfully for financial services
apps.
Good luck...
Thanks,
JS
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Posted from the new ixda.org
http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=34312
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