[IxDA Discuss] columns of alphabetical checkboxes: across or down?

[Paul Trumble]

Bryan,

It's not so much what people are going to do but the information
design you create.  The space between the columns and rows will either
lead people to read across or down.  When you lay it out, if they look
more like rows then columns people will tend to read left to right, if
they look more like columns then rows people will tend to read top to
bottom.

Paul Trumble

On 9/1/06, Bryan J Busch <bryanjbusch at gmail.com> wrote:
> [Please voluntarily trim replies to include only relevant quoted material.]
>
> Let's say you've got a few dozen checkboxes and associated labels
> (that the development team insists is the method they're going with
> despite any more elegant proposals). They're ordered alphabetically
> in three columns.
>
> Are people more likely to want to scan for the word they want by
> looking across then down, or down and then across?
>
> They're currently across then down (which, hello, English words do
> that), but it looks funny to me. Maybe it has something to do with
> the spacing. There's considerably more space between columns than
> there is between rows, but that should be the standard, as well.
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