Too many checkboxes in a table?

Question

A user should be able to change the settings for 5 different options for each day of the week at the same time.

I was thinking of something like this, but it seems a bit messy... Too many things right?

What would you recommend?

For each option, Drop off and Pickup can be enabled at the same time.

Final solution

I took into consideration all our suggestions and I appreciate them.

I added the background colors but I could not filter the information to show. The user should be able to interact with the system using the minimum number of clicks and in the faster way, so I could not hide any columns.

What i finally did was the following:

• Get rid of the checkboxes and add new styled ones (real ones are there but hidden)
• On mouse over the cells, the two correspondent columns will be highlighted (the other will become darker)
• On mouse over, the day column (at the left), will also be highlighted in order to facilitate the user to see in which day they are. (useful for last columns )

Here is the image with the cursor over Option2, sunday row, Pickup:

Answer 1

It isn't inherently bad, necessarily, but you could opt to make things easier to use. Consider the following:

• Above the table headers, or between the first and second headers, put checkboxes that allow you to check or uncheck the entire column. If the user changes anything in said column, the master checkbox for that column should be disabled until the entire column is either checked or unchecked again; this prevents them from accidentally clicking the master checkbox when the column has been configured.
• When pressing the shift-key, a range of checkboxes should be able to be checked in a row and column orientation. Show visual feedback during the keypress that this is happening (slightly altered background color of affected cells).

I would personally ensure that an :active checkbox (current focus) has a clearly defined style, either by changing the backgroundcolor of the cell or otherwise. This makes it easier for tech-savvy users to tab through the boxes and clearly see where they are currently at.

Additionally, a slight backgroundcolor change per cell, depending on whether the item is checked or not, would also be helpful in creating a better overview.

Answer 2

I would use this matrix of image as default view with two filter options

(1) Using a drop-down control to Filter by option, which would have the view change to this when one option is selected:

(2) Using a second drop-down control to Filter by day, which would have the view change to this when one option is selected:

Sometimes your user would like to have a simple oveview of drop offs and pick ups, which your first image provides. Adding filters makes it easier for the user to edit the correct option or the correct day without worrying of missing a row or a column and making a wrong edit.

Try it and test the idea on your project team!