Designing tables people can scan

Tables often get treated as a place to dump data. For the people who use them every day, they are the product.

Start with the question

At Parcelry the real question each morning was which parcels needed a hand. So the default sort is by action, not by date, and everything else is one click away.

Make columns easy to compare

Numbers are right aligned with tabular figures. Status uses a short word in a soft tint, never colour alone. Rows are tall enough to click but short enough to fit a full day on one screen.

Keep it fast

Virtual scrolling, stable column widths and filters in the URL mean the table feels the same with ten rows or ten thousand.