在经典的Finder中，苹果没有使用箭头。相反，有一个小图标看起来像三（或四）条递增或递减长度的水平线。乍一看，它像一个三角形；但是当看它时，它清楚地表明它是变得越来越大还是越来越小。

其他图形用户界面（例如 KDE）使用三角形，但大多数人将其解释为箭头，使消息含糊不清。

我不认为它们是箭头，而是当前状态的视觉助记符。因此，显示向下指的三角形表示降序。它在视觉上与列表顶部的最大项（三角形底部）和底部的最小项（三角形尖端）对齐。

我一直都遵循以下的做法：

• Ascending -- Arrow pointing up
• Descending -- Arrow pointing down

在我看来，箭头向上/向下的视觉表现最准确地解释了排序顺序。

我已经对此进行了可用性测试。用户似乎在箭头的意思上没有一致的解释。我记得甚至每个用户的解释也不一致，有时认为箭头向下表示升序，另一次表示降序。我曾尝试左右箭头（“前进”与“后退”排序），但它们也无法一致地解释。我曾尝试显示当前状态和显示将发生的状态。两者都没有起作用。

工作的是一种图解文本展示该排序的方式：“A..Z”和“Z..A”用于字母，“1..9”和“9..1”用于数字，“1..12”和“12..1”用于日期（可用性测试使用mm / dd / yy日期格式）。

将此文本显示为只读，表示当前状态。在文本旁边放置一个按钮，用于设置或交换排序顺序。

我没有尝试过上升/下降的条形图标，但我预计它可能会遇到“更大”不明确的困难。例如，过去的旧日期比较新日期更大（更久远），还是更小（更接近时间0）？优先级1比优先级2更大还是更小？ A级比B级更大还是更小？另外，除了极客之外，谁认为“Zuschlag”比“Abbott”大得多？当然，我并没有对此进行个人攻击。

由于某种原因，我总觉得方向是倒着的。对我来说，指向下的箭头/三角形应该代表我通常阅读事物的方式（从上到下->从a到z），而指向上的箭头则是我阅读事物的倒序方式（从z到a）。但这只是我的看法，因为大多数流行的用户界面（Mac、Windows等等）都使用了另一种方式，他们一定知道些什么：）。

在任何情况下，与用户已习惯的一致性是一个不错的选择。

My favorite is actually the way that e.g. Excel handles it -- don t use an arrow, but rather a custom icon with

A  |
Z  V

for ascending sort and

Z  |
A  V

for descending sort. Nobody will ever wonder which way you re sorting.

Now, if you can t use a custom icon but rather need a printable character, I d say people are about as likely to be confused by either one. Windows uses the "small part of arrow corresponds to smaller value" for Explorer, which is to say that ascending sort points up. But plenty of other sources assume that the base of the arrow starts at the lowest value and points in the direction of the sort, which frankly makes as much sense as anything else. In other words, half your users will probably have to adjust either way.

Ascending : Arrow pointing up
Descending : Arrow pointing down

Tricks to remember:

Alphabets:

• A scending i.e. A B C D
• D escending i.e. D C B A

Numbers:

• A=1,B=2...Z=26.
• Ascending A B C D so 1 2 3 4 i.e. small to large
• Descending D C B A so 4 3 2 1 i.e. large to small

Date:

• Date is actually converts to a number, it increase on day base, so it works again a number system. today is bigger than yesterday, today is smaller than tomorrow.

I like:

• arrow pointing down for ascending order
• arrow pointing up for descending order

Why? Because it feels like I just sorted the page. I clicked on the heading and it was "Wow! Sorted top-to-bottom". Why "top-to-bottom" is called ascending, is because the numbers/letters get higher in value as the computer writes to the screen. The opposite for descending. However, the list is actually descending down the screen from the top to the bottom - a to z. When you order it the other way, the beginning of the list is at the bottom of the screen.

So to the physical human mental logic - the kind that means clockwise is close and counter-clockwise is open, it makes sense to ignore how the machine sorts and outputs the data, and think rather about how a human might sort data: start at the beginning (smallest values) and at the top of the paper, then advance through to the end (largest value) on down the paper.

The reason the beginning is smallest, is because 1 comes before 2, and the Roman alphabet starts with A and end with Z. So this is sort of default for us humans at this point in time. We write top to bottom and left to right. It has to do with handedness and the way we hold paper - I think. I m not actually human interface specialist. I just thought about why it seems more natural. The KDE guys are human interface specialists. Take a look how Oxygen is done.

The other way I think is alright is a triangle that is actually showing that the data is smallest to largest. Again, this is rather technical and at first glance, the human might not "get it".

An arrow pointing up usually means larger or getting larger, so that should be used for Ascending order. An arrow pointing downwards usually means something is smaller or getting smaller and it should be used for Descending order.

I expect the arrows to show the current state (pointing up when the list is currently ascending). The is what Windows Explorer does in Details View.

The other thing that you need to consider is whether the arrow represents the current sort direction or the sort direction that will be applied if you click on the arrow. (Not always obvious from the contents of the table as there can be arrows on every column)

Sorry to add to the confusion, but you need to consider this.

Clarification on this front can be partially achieved by adding a suitably worded tooltip to the arrow.

"Is there a hard and fast rule for this?" - Apparently not, since you found examples of both.

For general consistency, I d say that the arrow should point up for ascending, down for descending. This is consistent with Windows (click a column header in Explorer) and Office (filter/sort a column in Excel).

Best place to check, in my opinion.. would be large corporate websites like amazon, dabs etc. as these will be what users are most used to.

I think everybody agrees that the direction of the arrow requires the users to think about its meaning. What does a down arrow mean? A-Z or Z-A? What does it mean when sorting dates? It is clear only when the user looks at the actual sorted data.

For this reason, I find it best not to use any indication of direction. It is enough to indicate the fact that rows are sorted by a certain column. It is important to find out which way the users usually expect the rows to be sorted for the first click. The second click reverses the order, the third click turns sorting off.

I have implemented this several times and users have no problem sorting the rows by different columns the way they like.

This is a highly opinionated question. But here is a logical solution and the reason behind why I chose it :

Solution:

If using an arrow to display sort order in a Table Column, it will be better to use a Down arrow for ascending and vice versa.

Reasons:

1. If we are referring to a picture or a graph, where visual and value based traversal are both in the same direction, using "Ascending" or "Descending" will serve its purpose as intended. But when it comes to Tables, the main source of confusion is that, the values are traversed to higher values (upward, but only conceptually) but the direction of visual traversal is downward. And since an arrow is a visual clue (direction) it might be easier for someone to understand the directional traversal better with it.

2. For many people the concept of ascending and descending are understandable in terms of values. But in certain cases, the users of that table might not be aware of these concepts. For example, someone who has never been to school or a primary school kid or someone completely new to digital world. For them, directional concept will be easier to understand. As in a-z, upward or downward. As in 1-9 upward or downward. It is to be noted that educated or experienced users can understand it either way (the 4th reason).

3. Next reason is that whether we are masters in digital tables or not, we have always written lists and tables. And in almost all the cases, we write it in ascending order in downward directions. So, it is somewhat hardwired to our brain.

4. Finally, the confusion on this issue always existed and a universal method is always better. To this day, I always analyse how the values are sorted to see if it is in ascending or descending order. The directional arrows never served its purpose since it is not reliable. For educated or experienced users knowing the order immediately will not be a problem. When we create a universal standard though, we must see to it that every probable user would be able to understand it...

How I use it:

I use a tailed arrow for numbers, alphabets or any other values increasing progressively while traversing in that direction.

Since the values are increasing (by default), user can call it Ascending if he wants to, but the arrow is downwards. This also helps me in sorting word sets (for example, the status of a record in the table. It may not be sorted in alphanumeric order but in order of status progression).

Hope this helped.

Remember that descending is for down. So, I would use the down arrow for descending. But, I always get confused by this anyway. I recommend that you use letters instead, like A-Z and Z-A instead of the arrows. Or, use them in conjunction with the arrows.

There is no hard and fast rule, but the best approach is to reduce the apparent complexity for the user, using the best mapping of down and up arrows to the terminology "Ascending" and "Descending".

Note that most non-numeric concepts doesn t have a strong natural mapping to "up" or "down". Do letters/words go "up" or "down" in the dictionary? How about dates and times? Where it is ambiguous, I believe there is no "right" answer - I recommend allowing "Descending" to represent the more useful sort order for consistency, as the user is likely to think about the table as being "down" as they move their eyes down. Leaving aside digital representations since the users of most applications do not know or care about the internal representation. Therefore alphabet sorting could be "Descending" for A-Z, and time could be Descending with most recent first. The good news is, as long as the first click gives the user the sorting behavior that they expect, and the second reverses it, they mostly won t care which of the two modes is used.

That challenge about the correct sort to do "first" (on showing the content, or sorting on a new column) is the more important implication of the question. The type AND intended usage of the information determines it should sort. Alphabetic should always default A-Z, "descending" by my above logic. Numbers vary much more by use: numbers that represent sequential identifiers, say, an employee ID would be ascending (1-10), while sorting on quantities or price would usually be descending, to bring the largest values to the top. Time also varies - most recent first ("Descending") usually works but in some contexts, the oldest should be listed first.