Column naming in tables that break into two columns

Question

I have a design for a monitoring screen that shows only two pieces of information per row:

• Name
• Status

The user will not be able to interact with the UI because it will be shown on a TV in a room for status tracking. Because of this, in case when there are more entries that can fit into the screen height, instead of allowing the page to scroll the table breaks into two columns.

My question is:

Does it make sense to not repeat the table header labels since the user can associate the far left with “module” and far right with “status”?

My assumption is that the user will not have any problems reading the table that breaks into two columns without the table header also breaking the same way. Especially because there is clearly a gap between the two columns.

Answer 1

I don't think there is an obvious need to repeat it for both the columns. Nonetheless, I would advise against the layout of labels in your 2 column layout - I would expect better readability with the label assigned to the first column, for these reasons:

• clearer transfer from 1 to 2 column view
• easier matching of labels to items
• better understanding that column 1 continues into column 2

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