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I would like to know if anyone has any ideas on how best to style up an eCommerce orders grid. (Magento). The idea is that the orders that are new and requiring action get highlighted, the ones of concern get highlighted (fraud), dealt-with orders (cancelled) get 'greyed out', orders needing some delayed further action (awaiting stock) get highlighted appropriately and the completed orders get displayed in a tranquil colour.

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Both the foreground and background colours can be coloured. Imaginably there are conventions that best be followed. If you know of an existing scheme in another ecommerce package then that might serve as guidelines.

The states are as follows:

  • Pending
  • Pending Payment
  • Processing
  • On Hold
  • Complete
  • Closed
  • Cancelled
  • Suspected Fraud
  • Payment Review
  • Pending PayPal
  • Deposit Taken
  • Awaiting Stock
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Well, obviously you can't solve this with color coding, or you'd get a psychedelic unusable grid.

You can solve this with icons though. All the states you mention are relatively easy to depict with an icon, which should be placed in a dedicated column (leftmost). It should sorting and filtering, and a tooltip should appear on the icon.

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We have been colour coding spreadsheets, wall-planners and more for a long time without anyone complaining about the colours - they do not have to be psychedelic, pastel or any other scheme you might dismiss with a trite 'obviously'. No I do not think a new scheme of what-is-that icons is really going to help explaining to staff what to do or helping them process orders. – ʍǝɥʇɐɯ Jul 5 '11 at 9:48
You misunderstood the "obviously" part. I'm not against color coding, and it has nothing to do with the color scheme. You just have too many states to be able to provide a distinct color for each - without, as I said, getting a psychedelic unusable grid which will just hurt the users' eyes. In my experience, with yet even more states than you have, icons have been proven to work well. – Vitaly Mijiritsky Jul 5 '11 at 12:17

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