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What is the most user friendly way to notify an user that "The items in the rows needs to be re-arranged"

What I have is

Re-sequencing items required, press update button

How can I make this process more natural and friendly ?(platform is mobile)

The items may be chocolates and toys. Every week it needs to be automatically re-arranged which will be initiated by the users.

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3  
It's a little bit difficult to answer this question, since it lacks context. What are the items? Why do they need to be re-arranged? – Alexej Froehlich Jul 2 '12 at 15:04
@AlexejFroehlich Ya I accept that, the items may be chocolates and toys. Every week it needs to be re-arranged and I feel this should be informed to the user in a good way – Pratheep ch Jul 2 '12 at 16:44
Who is using this application? "Resequencing" may be reasonable for a specialist audience but not for everyone. – Peter Jul 2 '12 at 17:12
@Peter: Its just normal users, sadly no specialists.. – Pratheep ch Jul 2 '12 at 17:16
2  
We're having to piece together your actual requirement based on your brief question text and various comments you've left in this post and against answers. To save all the confusion it's much better if you can provide the full requirements in the main question initially instead of drip feeding the information piece-by-piece. – JonW♦ Jul 2 '12 at 22:36
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4 Answers

up vote 1 down vote accepted

If it is an automatic process does the process happen without the user pressing the button or do they have to trigger it?

Either way I would try to phrase it more around refreshing the table to represent the most accurate up to date information rather then say anything about re-arranging or re-sequencing. Unless it is significantly important for the users to know that items are being re-ordered a certain way I would try to frame it as: "Some data may be out of date, please refresh to view the most accurate information." (where "refresh" is a button or text link)

Of course if it is an automated process that doesn't require user intervention you could just just do it so that it is always up to date whenever they load the table (or I suppose give them the refresh menu if they keep the page open for a significant amount of time).

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up vote 0 down vote

"Refresh Required ! UPDATE

(where UPDATE is a button)

I'm assuming that there is some 'user control' aspect as to why the user has to initiate this rather than it just happening.

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up vote 1 down vote

For the message text itself: "Re-sequencing items required, press update button" is completely different to "items need to be re-arranged". It implies that pressing the update button will be enought to get the re-sequenced items. But your explanation means that the user need to move items around.

If you mean that the items will be re-arranged automatically once the user pressed update, then a message like "Press 'update' to automatically re-sequencing the items" is a better solution. Still, this is probably not the best approach. Perhaps the user also needs to know WHY the items need to be re-arranged?

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You are almost there, Two points : Yes its automatically done and I feel saying re-sequence will confuse the users – Pratheep ch Jul 2 '12 at 16:47
up vote 0 down vote

The 'reload' button seems the most relevant. Two circling arrows is a common representation. Animate or highlight the icon when a refresh is needed... no words are necessary.

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ya its true, But am more concerned here about the text though – Pratheep ch Jul 2 '12 at 16:45

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