Wow! That's an impressive settings table! Even a little scary.
From the looks of it, I'm assuming this is a proprietary app you can't tell us too much about. But I'll pose a few questions just the same.
- Is the position of a cell meaningful to the user? If it's important that they understand how a unit relates to two relational axes, the grid presentation is probably the most efficient option.
- Is the discrete value of each cell important, or do users tend to deal with them in bulk? I ask because your example has only a small number of deviations.
- Is the continuous progression of the data set from one cell to the next important? If not, it may be possible to break the whole array into groups.
If #1 is false, you can start considering other presentations. Without understanding the workflow and meaning of the data, it's very hard to say what that presentation might be.
If #2 is false, you can probably compress the table in a way that is both helpful to the user and improves use of screen real estate. In the context of a table, think of how you might hide columns in a spreadsheet and only expand when you need to inspect detail. The header could be 2-28 [expand >]
, where the cells below represent duplicative data across columns and an expand link allows the user to change individual cells.
If #3 is false, you might be able to break the table down into smaller, logical groups. It wouldn't necessarily be any more efficient, but it would make the controls less intimidating and allow for larger click targets through better space distribution.