Design a library management GUI

moz · 05-15-2009, 07:26 AM

The problem of navigating a list of thousands of titles is hard, and I think the current attempts fail dismally. The first image below shows my idea of what can be done - 16 point text and two lines per title gives about 14 entries per page. Using 8 point text (which is about the size of the 6 point text I prefer on my Sony) gives about 30 entries per column and two columns for 60 entries per page.

Assuming only a four-way controller plus select and page turn buttons (since most devices have that) how do we navigate? If we make up/down work as expected, making left/right jump columns is a bit useless, even for small text with two columns - it's not granular enough.

So, jump by 10? It's now 5 presses of the U/D buttons or you're better off going jump+5 up/down. And 60 items on a screen are now less than 10 presses, so it's no worse than a 10-item menu using current designs. But it's a bit odd to have a press right take you 10 items down.

How about more columns... in landscape! If we rotate the display it makes sense to have four or more columns and fewer items in each. Now the up/down/left/right controller works in the obvious way. With 4 columns of 20 books that means at most 12 keystrokes to select any entry.

In the menu above that have the option to list by author, title or something else, and to include or exclude books marked as read. Maybe have another top-level menu list if there are more than a few pages of entries so you can jump into the middle of it. With 1000 entries at 80 per page you've got 13 pages to wade through, but with 3.5GB on the Kindle DX you can fit 3500 books at 100kB each... 40 pages to list them so an intermediate list makes more sense. That could also reduce the keystroke count because you can jump to the middle of a page (a smart jump algorithm might always make the selected entry on the overview page the middle of the list page rather than the start)

OK, does that make sense? Better ideas? Suggestions and criticisms most welcome.

JSWolf · 05-23-2009, 07:46 PM

For me, it's a lot easier to use the collections on the 505 then use the sorted lists.

05-15-2009, 07:26 AM	#1
moz Addict Posts: 370 Karma: 1553 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Melbun Device: Kobo H2O	Design a library management GUI The problem of navigating a list of thousands of titles is hard, and I think the current attempts fail dismally. The first image below shows my idea of what can be done - 16 point text and two lines per title gives about 14 entries per page. Using 8 point text (which is about the size of the 6 point text I prefer on my Sony) gives about 30 entries per column and two columns for 60 entries per page. Assuming only a four-way controller plus select and page turn buttons (since most devices have that) how do we navigate? If we make up/down work as expected, making left/right jump columns is a bit useless, even for small text with two columns - it's not granular enough. So, jump by 10? It's now 5 presses of the U/D buttons or you're better off going jump+5 up/down. And 60 items on a screen are now less than 10 presses, so it's no worse than a 10-item menu using current designs. But it's a bit odd to have a press right take you 10 items down. How about more columns... in landscape! If we rotate the display it makes sense to have four or more columns and fewer items in each. Now the up/down/left/right controller works in the obvious way. With 4 columns of 20 books that means at most 12 keystrokes to select any entry. In the menu above that have the option to list by author, title or something else, and to include or exclude books marked as read. Maybe have another top-level menu list if there are more than a few pages of entries so you can jump into the middle of it. With 1000 entries at 80 per page you've got 13 pages to wade through, but with 3.5GB on the Kindle DX you can fit 3500 books at 100kB each... 40 pages to list them so an intermediate list makes more sense. That could also reduce the keystroke count because you can jump to the middle of a page (a smart jump algorithm might always make the selected entry on the overview page the middle of the list page rather than the start) OK, does that make sense? Better ideas? Suggestions and criticisms most welcome. Last edited by moz; 05-15-2009 at 07:31 AM. Reason: brevity

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05-23-2009, 07:46 PM	#2
JSWolf Resident Curmudgeon Posts: 79,158 Karma: 144284184 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: Roslindale, Massachusetts Device: Kobo Libra 2, Kobo Aura H2O, PRS-650, PRS-T1, nook STR, PW3	For me, it's a lot easier to use the collections on the 505 then use the sorted lists.

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