5 whole minutes about sort and filter

5 WHOLE MINUTES ABOUT SORT AND FILTER

IUE 2011

Danielle Cooley @dgcooley

Sort, defined

to place (records) in order, as numerical or alphabetical, based on the contents of one or more keys contained in each record

Like this:

Filter, defined

a higher-order function that processes a data structure (typically a list) in some order to produce a new data structure containing exactly those elements of the original data structure for which a given predicate returns the boolean value true

Like this:

They are not the same.

=/=Sort Filter

Yet many misuse the terms.

!

Do users understand the difference?

Probably not.

But it doesn’t really matter.

Somehow, filter has (mostly) evolved in a user-friendly way.

Sort – Link

Sort – Dropdown

Sort – Jigga-WHA?!

Sort – Sorting by the Usual Things…

Price – high to lowPrice – low to high

NameReview/RatingPopularityBestsellersBest Match (?)

Sort – Sorting by Other Things…

Bestsellers/Popularity

Greatest % off

New Arrivals

“Featured”

Sort – Sorting by Specific Things…

Publication DateDimensions (all 3)

Sort – What’s the Default?

Bestsellers/PopularityGreatest % offNew Arrivals

Sort – Not Sorting

Filter – Single-Select (link)

Filter – Single-Select (dropdown)

Filter – Multi-Select (checkboxes)

Filter – Sliders