hints for lists

We are, on a daily basis, creating lists and overviews for users, but it isn’t that easy to create a simple efficient list that is easy to use and has a nice layout. So what are the things that have to be in a list?
– paging when the list is very long
– possibility to order the columns ascending and descending
– show number of results viewable in list
– show number of total results
– total of the results of the shown page
– total of all the results

It is possible that there are a lot of columns, too much to show in one view and then there are different options to go for:
– show only the most needed columns
– let the user decide what fields he wants to show in a settings tab
– use scroll enabled navigation
we prefer the second option, because the layout is then adjusted to the settings of the user, the less info he shows, the better the list is and more readable.
For the layout of list we prefer a darker color for the head part of a list for example #f1f1f1.
The content (body) gets a light color like #ffffff because this part has to be easily readable and for the totals you’d better use a darker color again for example #ECECEC.
As a last hint we recommend you to use light colors and a standard font type like verdana or arial.
Cu next time, K.