1

We have a tree of categories as a first column and commission as a second column. Commission has inheritance abilities, e.g. if I set commission on Category 1 by default it will be applied to Category 2 as well.

enter image description here

We can set commission also to brands for different categories. The simplest example would be:

enter image description here

Currently, it duplicates the category row, but with a brand label.

If we set the brand commission on the parent category it should be inherited by the subcategories. In the current UI it will duplicate a subtree:

enter image description here

How to improve display for better user experience and readability? How can I display it without duplication of subtrees of categories? Or duplication can be present, but UI should be more usable

3
  • If I set a commission for category1-brand1 and then set a commission for category1, will category1-brand1 inherit the new value?
    – Nash
    Aug 13, 2020 at 7:47
  • Category1-brand1 will use first commission category1-brand1 as it is more specific Aug 13, 2020 at 7:53
  • added "Or duplication can be present, but should be optimized or more representative" Aug 13, 2020 at 8:23

4 Answers 4

2
+100

Switching the order of the columns would improve readability. This would avoid the Commission column being pushed farther and farther to the right each time a new level is added to the tree.

The visual depiction of a commission can show if it is inherited from a parent level or not. Just to demonstrate, in the image, inherited commissions (cat 2,3,7) have had their opacity reduced while non-inherited commissions have an opacity of 100%.

Inherited brands can follow suit and also appear faded out it. This allows both brands and categories to be displayed simultaneously. This maintains an understandable hierarchy while showing brands applied to different levels of the tree. It also improves readability by aligning the brands in a column rather than duplicating the tree.

The visual depiction of a commission can also show if it is assigned to a category or to a brand+category. This can be achieved by the commission visually matching either the style of the category or the style of the brand (since “brand+commission” has priority over “category”). enter image description here

8
  • Thanks! Many good considerations in this post. How it will look for both Brand 1 + Category 2 and Category 2 for other brands? Aug 16, 2020 at 8:02
  • I mean there is no displayed commission for Category 2 for other brands. Or not? Aug 16, 2020 at 8:08
  • The layout would be optimal for seeing the commissions of 1 brand. In order to see multiple brands, you would need a way to reduce repeating unnecessary information (in this case, the repeated “Brand 1”). I got the feeling from your posts that the Category tree can not be changed/reinterpreted. Like @C’est Moi, I would then suggest a table, but only for the commissions.
    – isaac
    Aug 16, 2020 at 10:33
  • Since a visual connection exists between a brand and the “brand+commission”s (the example uses the color orange), you can use “Brand 1” as the header label for its own column. Additional brand columns can easily be added. Commissions inherited from parent elements are still visually different (opacity < 100% in the example).
    – isaac
    Aug 16, 2020 at 10:33
  • I wouldn’t include the Categories within the table because of the aspect of having to repeat too much data. It would become difficult to scan and see which commissions belong to which categories. If anything, I would consider a way to show the tree structure as minimally as possible. If the commissions are at times more important than the tree’s structure, a toggle could even be considered to turn off the formatting of the tree and simply list the categories above each other.
    – isaac
    Aug 16, 2020 at 10:34
2

As I view it the brands (orange) seem to be a different hierarchy then the subcategories (blue). If you don't want to display both of them (duplication), you will have to switch them.

enter image description here

4
  • Thank you for the answer. How will look like "Formal shirts" for brand "Nike" and "Formal shirts" for other brands? Aug 13, 2020 at 7:57
  • If I set commission for "Nike-Shirts" it will be set for Formal shirts-Nike and T-shirts-Nike as well... Aug 13, 2020 at 7:58
  • There won't be any setting "Formal shirts" for "Nike". The idea is that you can only switch the hierarchy once per path. If your brands have sub-brands, like Nike Free or Air Jordan, they would show up under your brands. Yes, inheritance stays like it is. But there's no visual way to change the commission for Formal shirts-Nike and T-shirts-Nike.
    – Nash
    Aug 13, 2020 at 9:17
  • But still need to display T-shirts? Just under Lacoste? Aug 13, 2020 at 9:39
2

Construct a table consisting of columns representing each type of object class.

In your case, one column would consist of the objects of category 1 and category 4 and their siblings. Another column would be of category 2, 3, and 5 and their siblings. A third would be those for category 6 and 7 etc.

Presumably there would be another column for brands.

The usual way of building a tree would work from a hierarchy of parent - child - grandchild. Quite often you can identify the hierarchy by the repetition of data. For example if you have 10 rows in your table and the brand columns has 2 different values but another column has 10 different values and a third column has 6 different values you could be in a position to say the the 2 value column is the parent, the 6 value colunn is the child and the 10 value column is the grandchild.

You can build trees in different ways depending on the hierarchy you want to have. You are proposing to have brand as a child attribute of categories. This might be appropriate or not.

It is possible that your users have opinions on how this tree should be organized. Ask them.

2

Take brand label as a kind of subcategory.

In such case your latest structure could look like as follows:

enter image description here

UPDATE:

In this way you'll be able to make brand label root category which allow you to set brand's commission for all categories.

1
  • Thanks, this will be simplest to implement Aug 16, 2020 at 8:03

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