You've listed just about all the tactics we've used, or tried to use, for large, long tables of complex data.
Users of our application didn't like tooltips, and it made sense for how they needed to view the data. The tooltip obscured data underneath. In this case, seeing all the data all the time was important. Plus, accidental hovers caused tooltips when they weren't intended. A click to show a popup didn't seem to work: users needed the information in the popup but if they needed the information in the popup and needed the information underneath, it wasn't a good solution. And then, being able to move the popup elsewhere on the page still obscured data underneath somewhere else. We used hide/reveal accordions, for lack of a better term, based on an 80/15/5 rule. Data people needed 80% of the time was always shown. Data needed 15% of the time was hidden but could be revealed via an accordion (a hidden row that could be revealed or closed, just a jQuery show/hide). Data needed 5% of the time, well, we burn that bridge when we come to it on a case by case basis and we are still burning bridges as I write this. But to go back, how we figured what data fit the 80%, etc., was to ask the application's users. We're lucky enough to have built the application for a relatively small set of users whose representatives all liked each other--so, discussion over what needed showing/hiding was bloodless. And we could do the discussion in person in twice-a-month meetings until the application reached version 1.0. Another bit of info: we determined that different users needed to see different data at different times, but needed access to all of it. So, users can hide/show data, including data within the 80%, and the application remembers their preferences. That's maybe more details than needed, but if more are wanted I'd be happy to discuss offline. -jody -- Jody Tate Interface Designer and Developer UW Network Systems http://staff.washington.edu/jtate/ ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
