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Re: Reading Data Tables on iOS

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From: Tim Harshbarger
Date: Dec 14, 2016 6:40AM

I actually do not mind reading tables on my iOS device. Typically, I'll adjust the rotor setting to "vertical" which allows me to navigate the table more like I might on the desktop.

While I think the approach of paragraphs could work, I think it might end up being a less efficient and more error prone way for users to navigate tabular information for some types of use cases. Let me explain what I mean.

Let's imagine that you have data you are presenting to a user regarding different types of life insurance policies. For each type, you include information about coverage, cost, and a few other things.

Let's say the table design presents each type of life insurance along a row with the columns consisting of data related to things like coverage and cost.

For the paragraph design, each paragraph contains information on a type of life insurance--or perhaps you decide to make each type of insurance a different section with its own heading and a list that presents each type of information for that life insurance type.

So, in a use case where the user wants to read about each type of life insurance policy, both approaches work easily as well--I think. For the table, the user reads along the row to get all the information--which is what most screen readers will do automatically. The same is for the paragraph approach. I would say that there really isn't much difference with this use case regarding the impact to the user.

However, what about the use case where the user wants to compare coverage's or costs between types? With a table, it is fairly easy to traverse up and down the columns to compare. With the paragraph approach, the user is going to need to do more navigation to get to the coverage and cost for each type of insurance. I also think it is going to require them to try to keep the data in memory for a longer period.

I think that is where the paragraph approach falters. I think the paragraph approach would work well in situations where the user only cares about the data along a single axis. I think the paragraph approach becomes more problematic if the user wants to look at the information along 2 axis. I think it is still possible to present the information that way, but I think it might also end up being less effective and possibly more error prone for some use cases.

Thanks,
Tim