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I have a dashboard with a few tasks in a laboratory application, and each task has a large number of data displayed in the data grid. I need to implement the edit functionality of a record. What is the best way to do it?
You can do both:
Icon will serve for discoverability for first time users.
+ Visible and findable.
- Small click target.
Double click is a productivity shortcut for advanced users.
+ Large click target (whole row), fast.
- Invisible, needs explanation.
Don't forget a way to convert people from beginners to advanced users - for example, by a clue (row does react on hover) and by info (add a note to edit window opened by button 'Note: you can also edit rows by double clicking them.' or to button's title/tooltip).
EDIT: Also, what's the typical action? Will the user want to edit the whole record, or to fix a single attribute? If they often need to fix a single number, double clicking the table cell could do a fast inline edit (replace the table cell with input, save on <enter>, clicking outside, or on a small inline OK button).
Observe what people do, make a shortcut to tighten their interaction loops. For example:
Before:
After:
Don't rely on double click to edit.
Double click is almost not used on the web. As far as I know it is only conventional for zoom, because the single click already has an action assigned.
Use a cursor change (to pointer for example) when something happens on click. You can also use an edit icon for better affordance that can always be there or appear when the mouse hovers over the field.
I think it will be depending on your page functional - is it a regular data display or edit page? For clarity it is better to put small edit icon on the right of each row, but if you want to click it to edit you should put a note as a subtitle "click to edit".
Do both. For a MySQL database, there exists phpMyAdmin which allows people to view the contents of their database, phpMyAdmin supports both, and both are great!
If I want to change a lot of info I click the edit and then get a complete form to edit the whole row.
If I want to change a single value, I double click and the cell changes into an input.
The fact that both of the options exist, saves me a noticable amount of time.
In terms of UX, I suggest you make something like a tooltip or a small legend as double click isn't very common in websites. But, uncommon != impossible, nor unpractical. I'm assuming lab people are somewhat similar to power users, and we love this kind of data editting.
I think you should display it icon so that user can easily understand oh i cal also edit it this is very important to show in User interface what is the purpose of the information and how we can use it.
Thank You
It really depends on the platform.
You should avoid using double-click on the web as stated on nngroup:
double-click must die since it causes novice users great difficulties and since it conflicts with the single-click interaction style of the Web.
Taken from this answer.
You can give check boxes for each record and give button at top of the table saying EDIT followed by an ICON. It'll be crystal clear for the user to select individual record and perform the operation. When multiple records are selected EDIT will become DISABLED.
