Sorting allows actors to re-organize collection of items when the default order may be insufficient to scan.
Behavior
- The dropdown allows users to choose their sorting criteria.
- Sort selections are meant to be persisted. When actor returns to the page, their previous sort selections will be preserved.
- As soon as an item in the dropdown is selected, the list content re-sorts automatically.
- The default sort order is determined on a page-by-page basis.
Consequences
- the actor holds the order, and their choice persists, so coming back to the page doesn't undo the arrangement they left it in
- order is itself a claim about what matters: whatever the collection is sorted by becomes the thing read first, whether or not that was the intent
Resources & references
Appears in
Composing views
- Framing the collection, step 5 — Hand the actor the order
Related patterns
Complements
- Attribute visibility — surface then operate: an attribute made visible becomes a key to sort by
- Filtering — orders what filtering lets through
- Grouping — orders the members within each group
Tangential to
- Selection — Sorting changes what a range selection refers to mid-flight — range selections have to either survive the sort or re-resolve to the new order
Preceded by
- Data view — acts on the framed collection the view already holds
Enabled by
- Drag and drop — manual ordering is a drag: when the order lives in the actor's head rather than in an attribute, dragging an item into place is the write