Sorting on a multipage list - should it send you to the first page?

Question

I have a functionality which loads several records that are paginated and can be sorted. What would be the best way to approach the sorting once the user is located beyond page 1? I find myself thinking that there are two possible ways to keep the user experience consistent:

• If an user clicks on sorting, and he is located on page 3, the records are sorted but he continues to be in page 3.
• If an user clicks on sorting, the records are sorted but he is taken to page 1.

Answer 1

First of all, the best practice would be to use AJAX resorting of elements, because you don't want to reload the whole page and break the flow in user's navigation. That being said, the sorting should be applied without resetting to page 1, that is, the user should stay on the same page, but you should scroll his view to the top. Also, use AJAX resorting and rescrolling if possible, because it would dramatically increase user experience.

Here is a generic example of what it could look like.

Answer 2

Here is another option. It assumes
- the records are displayed in some sort of table
- there are always one or more records selected when the table has focus
- sorting the table does not affect the selected state of a record

Sorting the records should keep the selected record(s) in view. When one record is selected, that record remains in view regardless of the sort order. When more than one record is selected, you will need to decide which record remains in view because the new sort may spread the selected records across multiple pages.

This is a common interaction in software for exploratory data analysis.