Column sort arrows are the opposite of what is expected

[Jonathan Meek]

This was brought up on Unity-design... On most other platforms, the sort arrows show the opposite graphic for order than is shown in Ubuntu. http://i.imgur.com/jx4tnMM.jpg

Steps to Repro
1. Open Files
2. Change view to list
3. Sort the date column

What is Expected:
The arrow should match up to the designs present in example image

What happens:
Arrows are the opposite to what is expected.

I don't believe sort columns are available in the new UI toolkit yet, but this is something that will need to be tracked for that as well.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 13.10
Package: light-themes 13.04+13.10.20131014-0ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.11.0-15.25-generic 3.11.10
Uname: Linux 3.11.0-15-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.12.5-0ubuntu2.2
Architecture: amd64
Date: Fri Feb 21 01:46:30 2014
InstallationDate: Installed on 2013-08-03 (202 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 13.04 "Raring Ringtail" - Release amd64 (20130424)
MarkForUpload: True
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: ubuntu-themes
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to saucy on 2013-10-18 (125 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

I think even more understandable than equilateral triangles would be right-angled triangles of sorted lines:
.
_
__

for ascending, and
__
_
.

for descending. But other than that, absolutely, just flipping the current arrows would be less confusing.

[Sam Hulick (samh-c)]

I have a proposal. This is something we've been discussing on the design mailing list. I'll call them "contextual sort indicators."

The idea is to replace the sort arrows with clear, concise indicators which would be:

- 0..9 (or 9..0 descending) for numerical values
- Jan..Dec for date/time values
- A..Z for alphabetic/string values

I did a quick mockup to compare the sorting arrow (Mac OS Thunderbird) vs the contextual sort indicator (attached)>

What do you guys think? Initially I was pretty steadfast in sticking with arrows and imitating Mac OS and Windows for familiarity's sake. For positive user experience, it's always a good idea to base things off familiarity. But the contextual sort indicator idea is growing on me.

[Sam Hulick (samh-c)]

Actually if I could go back and change my mockup, I'd make the "Dec..Jan" in a dark grey, not black. To help make it clear it's not part of the header name.