Hot answers tagged hierarchy
15
I would cite real research (don't actually ask them to read it, they probably won't) that proves your point, and show them some well-known sites as examples.
Also take the information from those links you mentioned and apply it to their website. Be confident in your assessments and advice.
Your clients aren't totally wrong about "the fold" though. Take a ...
10
Everything does not need to be above the fold, however the important things do. In my field, eCommerce, the fold has been very real.
Putting a call to action above the fold has increased our conversion rates on average.
Same thing with e-mail campaigns.
I have found this simple tool from google to be very helpful in determining the fold area. ...
10
The idea behind tags is the same as the idea behind labels in GMail: the ability to assign multiple tags to a single post/mail/.../item.
The GMail labeling of e-mails was born specifically to counter the need in most e-mail clients to archive an e-mail in a single specific folder which ususally would be part of a hierarchy of folders. So what do you do with ...
10
Like This?
I'm picturing a vertical tree structure like one would see in an OS file browser (see below). Is this right?
Stripes can Improve Usability
I think horizontal stripes (or lines) can help, but the help they provide is most beneficial when dealing with a horizontally large tree or list. For example, in the image above, if I need to connect a ...
9
You're on the wrong path, here.
The problem is that you try to show the attributes in different trees.
The tree should contain the content.
The attributes should be displayed as attributes to each node.
This can be done in various ways depending on the importance of attribute.
As a column:
...or:
- As a popup dialog
- By showing the attributes ...
8
Reddit case study
Let's look at a typical threaded commenting system, such as Reddit. It has the following problems:
It's hard to tell what's the parent of a comment when the tree is very deep.
If the tree is fully expanded, sometimes the parent comment can be off the screen.
There's no indication of which comments are new.
Now let's look at my ...
8
When your hierarchy is so large, there's no way to avoid clunkiness because it's there by design (large data sets are unwieldy). Miller columns with an "add" button on the bottom will be the most elegant solution here. They allow you to have as many hierarchical levels as possible while making selection process simple because they clearly separate the ...
8
Anything is commonly considered organized when it looks like
everything has a correct order or placement. But it's only ultimately
organized if any element has no difference on time taken to find it.
In that sense, organizing can also be defined as to place different
objects in logical arrangement for better searching.
...
7
A few considerations:
What OS is this for (or is it for multiple)?
Are there any constraints or known limits on your hierarchy?
Is there a search option provided?
No. 1 is important as you noted... because the Mac Finder would be foreign to most Windows users.
No. 2 may provide assistance also. E.g. finder works good if you have a shallow tree, but if ...
7
what factors might influence this decision?
Are new children checked by default?
This of course depends on the application. Since you didn't specify: lets discuss "selecting folders for backup". The best solution I found are WinZip project files, which works like this:
Even if all children are checked individually, the parent is set to "mixed." This ...
7
Multi level pie menu
Tree map
Zoomable interface
7
Luke Wroblewski has done a lot of research on web forms.This article on dependent dropdowns would probably answer this question more fully for you.
He breaks selection dependency into a few different visual displays: page display, tabs (section and finger), section selectors, and exposing with radio buttons (below, within, inactive, and groups).
Depending ...
6
I know it isn't what you asked, but the best solution is to not do this sort of thing at all. Users do not understand the "tri-state" checkbox. It doesn't make any sense whatsoever. A checkbox should only have two states - checked and unchecked.
If you need a way to select/deselect all children, add a button or a link next to the parent item to allow that ...
6
You have a nice data visualization challenge. Just throwing out this idea.
What if you don't automatically show the family connections on the main page.
I suggest an interactive data visualization.
When you rollover a panda, then the 'connections' show up. The relationships can be shown with lines and/or with color coding, for example, to show ...
5
Consider a search for "javascript visualisation library" on Google. Several promising results:
John Resig's processing.js - you'll probably have to write your specific visualisation yourself
the Javascript InfoVis toolkit - check the demos page for some examples of interactive tree maps, which represent hierarchies as you described in your question
...
5
Problems that I would devise a plan how to tackle:
What to do with synonymous tags, most commonly the plural form.
This will result in several tags effectively saying the same thing (think "pattern" and "patterns"), thus navigation is a bit harder and tag count might not reflect reality.
One way to alleviate this problem is to auto suggest tags, in hopes ...
5
This question is quite broad, so I'll try and give a primer. The Graph Drawing entry in Wikipedia makes a good starting point for this genre of visualizations.
Graph Drawing is a general term for pictures that show how things are connected. Synonyms and more specific variants abound: Node-Link Diagram, Relationship Diagram, Network Diagram, Social ...
5
This is a great opportunity to get creative.
download bmml source – Wireframes created with Balsamiq Mockups
Smart programming can take care of your performance issues hopefully. Just load things as you need them. Allow users to hide things they don't care about. Use a tree (it just makes sense logically) but don't let yourself be stuck in ...
5
I don't see a big difference in difficulty of implementation between the two models you describe but this ins't an implementation discussion.
Only people with much more information about the project can determine whether the extra cost of implementation to achieve greater usability will pay off. My initial reaction (and that of most people here I think) ...
4
I think that part of your design straightjacket is your statement that "In order to define a Conference, the Speakers, Presentations, and Venues must already be present."
Why? In fact, you state it yourself: "I believe most users are accustomed to thinking...". Why go against the grain?
Instead, how about letting them create the conference, and then add ...
4
Unread comments - you can have a floating element that contains the number of unread comments and if you click on it, takes you to the next one (similar to the functionality of the "Find" dialog in Word). It doesn't even have to float, it can appear on hover on a comment, or even be static next to existing comments (an icon for "take me to the next unread ...
4
I think it depends on the typical tasks.
For just seeing a hierarchy and clicking on links, I do agree with lucasrizoli, that tree is very similar.
If user have to go through folders a lot (forward and backward in hierarchy) I prefer the Mac OSX idea. It is very useful at work, where I have to find thinks in folders.
Why is it good?
Firstly it uses much ...
4
Yes, qualitative data from card sorts can be valuable as a knowledge elicitation technique, especially when you're working in domains outside your expertise. The main benefit is that in addition to the categories, you get to know a bit more about the criteria that your participants are using and their thinking process. (Although if you've never done a card ...
4
I might be wrong but the pattern which you seem to be hinting at is that of faceted navigation.
Faceted search or navigation is an increasingly popular method of organizing data that would otherwise be hierarchically displayed in a fixed structure. With faceted navigation, the user can pick what's important to them. With each facet selection, the effect of ...
4
As well as the links above to other questions, you should consider faceted search which is as much about navigating a hierarchy as just searching, and again there was a question on ux se about faceted search.
For a feature rich implementation of faceted search and navigation, see http://mspace.fm/ and try the demo button at top right.
4
If the same object can be on multiple locations in the same tree, then you don’t have a hierarchy. At the very least, you have multiple hierarchies. Or perhaps you have some many-to-many relationships.
In any case, I think you need to think more about your data model. You probably need to break down the hierarchical scheme into several orthogonal ...
4
Drilldown navigation:
See also:
http://developer.android.com/design/building-blocks/lists.html
http://www.androidpatterns.com/uap_pattern/drill-down-navigation
Update:
1) Add location breadcrumbs at the top of the screen to indicate where in the hierarchy you are.
2) Don't let the new level cover the previous level. Let some pixels of each level ...
4
I can't answer from a mathematical perspective, but from a UX perspective the root node is not required if it conveys no information about the hierarchy, and especially if it is liable to cause confusion about what the root actually represents.
The primary reason for including a root node is to represent an actual object which is a superclass of all its ...
4
Microsoft have left the TreeView display in mind when they introduced Windows 8. Now you move down the hierarchy by clicking items (categories) and using the back button to brows back. This is the default style of hierarchical navigation on Windows 8.
So a TreeView control in the style of Windows 7 and previous Windows versions does not apply. Take the ...
3
This is how it is done at my place of work.
Business guy/gal creates initiatives to drive revenue.
A Manager of that area takes lead to meet that initiative.
Then designers, UX, and coders meet with the manager to be briefed and to plan the project.
The project is worked on and completed, approved by the manager and then finally OK'd by the business ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
