Which direction is better for sorting lists with multiple columns?

Question

Please note: I am not asking how to implement or encode a list of multiple columns.

There are two ways to sort lists of multiple columns: horizontal and vertical. Many of Microsoft's System.Web.UI.WebControls have a RepeatDirection property that offers these two options. I am sure that other frameworks also offer these choices.

Below are samples of two options:

Horizontal Sort (Alphabetically)

* Ash * Beech * Cedar * Date * Elm * Fir * Grape * Hawthorn * Ivy 

Horizontal Sort (Numeric)

 1. Ash 2. Beech 3. Cedar 4. Date 5. Elm 6. Fir 7. Grape 8. Hawthorn 9. Ivy 

Vertical Sort (in alphabetical order)

 * Ash * Date * Grape * Beech * Elm * Hawthorn * Cedar * Fir * Ivy 

Vertical Sort (Numeric)

 1. Ash 4. Date 7. Grape 2. Beech 5. Elm 8. Hawthorn 3. Cedar 6. Fir 9. Ivy 

Vertical sorting is the default behavior of many elements of a list of .Net web controls for multiple columns (for example, CheckBoxList).

I studied the topic by looking at the usual document formatting standards that I used in college (APA, MLA, Chicago), but I did not find anything related to multi-column lists.

Are there any actual arguments or standards / rules / rules for document format to indicate the direction of sorting in multi-column lists?

Answer 1

I would personally think that the “reading order” from right to left “from top to bottom” would make the most sense, but I am starting to think about it in this situation.

I think that it can be easier to “scan” with your eyes vertically, since it is much easier to scan the first few characters of the text with left alignment than to scan and look at the first characters of the columnar text.

Answer 2

I was in a UI design where the speaker suggested we place more space between the things that you want the user to see separately from each other, and less space between the things you want the user to see as belonging to each other.

Since there is a much larger margin between any two columns than between any two lines of text, the brain will see this as three separate columns. The contents of each column are combined into one logical group, and there are three groups. Thus, your second example is much simpler - the first reaction is to scan (down) the first group (column) before moving on to the next group.

If there weren’t big spaces between the columns, for example, if you had a font with a fixed width, and each label had the same number of characters, and you had only one place between each column, and not by a large margin - - then yes, people will read without problems. But the instinct of grouping things is stronger than the studied reading behavior from left to right.