Toggling two-way relationships between objects

Question

A user can manage relations for an object within a modal window, which lists every other object as rows in a table.

For each of these, a user can toggle the relationship status by clicking the appropriate arrow icon. When I say 'appropriate', the direction of the arrow marks the direction of the relationship.

For example, object A can relate to object B, vice versa, both or neither.

Arrow toggles in the table heading apply a select all/none to the corresponding column.

My question is, does this technique seem intuitive? And does anyone have any suggestions for improving, or have seen this done similarly before and could point me a demo? All feedback welcome.

Answer 1

Sticking with the same data structure that you have, how about re-instating a vertical relationship between each item and the title item as in the pic below.

The top up and down arrows have the same global setting for the column. The first column of check boxes (which is essentially all your arrows are) indicates title has a relationship with the item. The second column of check boxes indicates that the item has a relationship to the title. Plus users are familiar with check boxes and so they have more affordance than your arrows which do not say 'click on me'.

Answer 2

In your proposed solution the arrows pointing right clearly indicate the objects they belong with, but the arrows to the left point at nothing.

As you describe it the possible values are "A to B", "B to A", "both", "neither". It's the relationship as a whole that you describe here, and I expect that to be congruent with your user's mental model as well. Two separate buttons indicate two separate choices: a boolean for incoming and another one for outgoing. In case you have enough space, why not tie the arrows together and show object A as well? Something like this (clicking on an arrow half will toggle that part):

Answer 3

I guess that the main object's name is the "Title" of the table.

In my opinion, since you are using right/left arrows, the object, its name or a symbol of it should be placed on the left of the table. In this way, "Title" should be replace by "All" to fit with the "select all/none" feature.

Something like this :

Answer 4

I think you have to add small infopanel on top of the table, but with ability to close it.
I disagree with Roger that it's better to use checkboxes instead of arrows. Arrows explain themselves what do they mean inline. Maybe adding hover effect to them will give them more "clickability".