UX Observations: Alphabetizing

The concept of alphabetizing was created by some Type A individual such as myself who wanted to make things easier to find. This, in its purest form, is a lovely concept. So considerate, so intuitive. 

           

This is a screenshot from a project management tool that we use internally, and out of all the functionality the tool offers, we are all uniformly and unanimously frustrated by the weird alphabetization. 

As you can see, the names are alphabetized by last name, but ordered in the “First Name, Last Name” arrangement. There are typically 2 ways you alphabetize - by first name, or by last name, where you put the last name first (hayes, olivia). We’re all comfortable with these forms of alphabetization, so why would the designers of this tool decide to do something that I’ve literally never seen done anywhere else?

It’s just a small example of a poor user experience that can sap productivity minutes at a time, but minutes add up to hours if it’s happening to 100 employees. Although it might seem creative to think up something brand new, you have to weigh the cost benefit of the learning/frustration curve. Sometimes it’s just not worth it to send people hard clicking around and blowing out their cheeks like puffer fish on the warpath.