Table cells: verbose or abstract?

Question

I got a surprising feedback from a large number of my user about something I would never consider an issue. If the number of votes on that particular feedback wasn't so large I would not consider it relevant, but now I am second guessing my intuition.

In my product there is a table/matrix that displays flights and their attributes.

The rows represent available flights types:

Fare A
Fare B
Fare C

The columns represent flight attributes. The header row literally reads:

Fare name |  Refundable  |   Free checked bags

Importantly, this is a very small matrix, showing no more than 5 fares (usually only 1 or 2) and exactly 3 attributes.

The cells of the table show

Yes/No

for the refundability, and

0/1/2

for free checked bags.

As as said, it is a small table that always fits on a single screen.

The feedback says the cells are confusing and difficult to interpret.

Instead of Refundable cells showing Yes/No, the feedback asks for the cells to show: Refundable/Non-refundable.

Instead of 0/1/2 for Free checked bags the cells should show: No free checked bags/1 free checked bag/2 free checked bags.

As I said, I am really surprised by such feedback. I would myself never consider it an issue, but maybe I have missed a trend or an important study?

Answer 1

Actually the users feedback makes sense, since in order to figure out what yes/no means,they`ll have to go to the columns header and read again. If the cells content is self explanatory they can scan through the row, without peeking to the row header.

Answer 2

The feedback makes a lot of sense, since we don't read pages in order, we scan and flick from place to place, skipping details.

With the current level of detail your users would immediately find the package they think they want, scan over the rows and not understand before going back to read the headers.

You're not wrong that the information needing to be confirmed isn't that complex. You could, perhaps find some icons that fulfill the additional information required.