Tell me more ×
User Experience Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for user experience researchers and experts. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 6 down vote favorite

I've created a a form that generate a list of results in a table.

I'd to know if it's interesting to number each row of table, the default number of row is 20. there is a pagination too. 20 results by 20.

I numbering each row but I don't know if it's really it's effective in this case.

1

share|improve this question
3  
What's the table for? What's the user using it for? To really know if you need to number the rows, you need to know if numbering the rows provides value to the user. When viewing invoices/very large data sets, number might matter. Viewing emails? Probably doesn't matter. – Ben Brocka♦ Jul 27 '12 at 21:09
This table it's a report. We use to generate the users that were imported in our database or not. We can specify the period and name/email (optional). Most of time the result will be more than 1000 rows... but with a pagination (20 per page). – Osny Santos Netto Jul 28 '12 at 0:59

2 Answers

up vote 4 down vote

My experience has been that numbering items in a table adds a lot of clarity in many situations.

Just think of a simple situation where someone wants to refer to a row. How do they do that when there aren't any numbers?

Unless the set is very small or there is a clear reason why numbering will not add any value, I would strongly suggest that you keep the numbering.

share|improve this answer
Depends on the filters of course, however, in general, they need a quick way to identify a row, but both users also need to be in the same context – Aadaam Jul 28 '12 at 16:22
Really, if there's another unique identifier - like a personal name - I'd usually deem that enough. Numbers can get a bit unwieldy with large data sets, and as Aadaam mentions, there's a risk that if the numbers are 'local' to each view instance, users could get tripped up. – Jimmy Breck-McKye Jul 28 '12 at 18:48
up vote 3 down vote

If a table has sorting and/or filtering capabilities, numbering the rows is not very valuable. Those numbers will either be out of order once you sort (or skipping rows when you filter), or they will change each time the user performs one of those actions, making the numbers meaningless.

I could see including the numbers in a PDF download of the table (or when shudder printing it) since at that point, the table is static, but before then those numbers don't really provide value.

share|improve this answer
Good example of when not to number them. – JohnGB Jul 30 '12 at 7:58

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.