How do I justify a “friendly view” when a department head is adding “table view” as a requirement?

Question

So in the web app I'm currently working on, I need to display a list of objects. I opted for a "friendly" view, with each object being a div. StackExchange's question list layout is actually a good example of what I mean.

A department head has added, and prioritized, making a standard table view (like an excel spreadsheet) the primary view. I'd really rather not do that, as I think they are uglier and harder to use in most cases.

Unfortunately, that's just my opinion vs his opinion and he outranks me. :(

So my question is: Is there anything out there comparing the two kinds of views and evaluating them to see the advantages/disadvantages of each?

EDIT: A couple people have mentioned A/B testing... one of the problems here is the project is overdue and at risk already, so adding dev time to figure this out is probably not a good idea. I'm hoping for some kind of generic study that says "grid views have these advantages" and one that says "friendly views have these advantages."

The only thing I can think of for table views is: More rows on screen, more familiarity to other systems, easier sorting/filtering

Answer 1

I'm not sure if you're talking about the technology of <table> or the presentation of tabular data.

In the case of technology, I think a talented developer can build either visual presentation with either div or table, so I don't see how that matters. Let's skip it.

The visual presentation of tabular data can be beautiful and usable. Particularly by emphasizing key data (object name) and deemphasizing less important data (id number) and demphasizing chart noise (do you need vertical lines? horizontal lines? how light can you make them?). Here are some beautiful tables: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/html-table-building-30-beautiful-examples-and-useful-javascripts/

Sometimes, when a high level thinker like a department head says he or she wants tables, what that means is that he or she likes a specific feature of tables. I suggest you bring a mockup of each version like @JohnGB suggests and be prepared to ask specific questions about why the stakeholder likes the grid view better--is it because you can sort all the columns? Only particular columns? Because it matches some related input or output in another piece of software?

Answer 2

One solution is to make one version of them both and just A/B test them (as JonW wrote). In a discussion - it's important that you back up your thoughts with hard facts (and the result from an A/B testing could be such a thing). Otherwise - make mockup images, show them and explain your case.

The problem is almost always that the customers (the ones who orders the jobs) don't focus on what the user is trying to accomplish. They rather tend to focus on a solution and prompt for that to be used. It's hard to "kill your darlings", that's why you need to have facts to present to your department head.

A side note - the human psychology works in a way that if you "process a threat" to the department heads idea (by just saying that the idea is bad) it will be tougher for you. Approach the situation by giving pros and cons to both your cases, but with the major advantages in your solution, making him/her feel like he/she was a part of the decision to use DIV tags.

Here is a short list of how to convince design customers - Convince clients

Answer 3

I think the most important question you need to ask yourself: is the manager representative for the users.

Basically, if it's an application that the manager and his peers will use, he might actually be right. Brian made some important notes on that.

If, on the other hand, the user base is found elsewhere (usually when targeted against customers, although this is not the case here), there might be a gap between the owner and the customer.

I don't want to get into the debate on whether one of the solutions are better than the other, but you should target the issue with owner-customer gap if you need to make an argument.

Of course, this requires you to know the targeted audience before you start arguing.

Answer 4

One view is not necessarily better than the other. They have different best use cases, but those are also not entirely objective.

A grid view is more visual, and arguably looks better. It is usually better at showing items when someone will primarily be looking at them visually (e.g. photos). You can include text, but here the text is secondary.

The downside to them is that the flow in looking through them is somewhat broken up as your eyes have to follow a zig-zag pattern. An illustration of this from the Android docs:

A list view on the other hand (what you're calling a "friendly view") is more information focused. It is easier to look through the list and see information that you are interested in, but some people would argue that it doesn't look as good.

On a smartphone, the photo / gallery app is usually a grid view, and the contacts / people app is usually a list view. These two views have been chosen based on the primary needs in each app.

So, the goal shouldn't be to convince anyone that one is better than the other. It should be to find the one that best fits the particular case.

Practically, you can put together a mockup of each one in a few minutes and use those mockups and reason to put a case forward. Simply saying that you like list views will achieve very little.