Excel is two-dimensional. Columns run horizontally. Rows span vertically. Initially we think of data as having two dimensions as well. In fact, two key terms in database lexicon are rows and columns, just like in Excel. Here’s an example of what an Excel database of some fictitious people might look like:
In reality, however, data usually has three dimensions. Rows describe items. Columns are singular attributes of those items. Lists are plural attributes of those items. Observe how adding a column for the names of each person’s children necessarily morphs the structure into a third dimension. Here’s what that Excel database might look like with a list in a cell:
The way I’ve drawn that table is OK. The problem is that I had to grab each row and adjust its height manually. Another option is I could have selected all the rows and navigated to Format –> Row –> Height and set the height for all rows to some arbitrary height. The problem with that, of course, is that the appropriate height differs from row to row. Jacob has three kids, Paul has two and Kim has one.
Maybe a better approach is for the software to allow you to enter a list of items in each cell, but be smart about how it shows you that data. Tighten it up. Maybe decorate it with a little triangle to suggest there’s more here than you see, but when you hover your mouse over the cell, show you all the values. Maybe it would like something like this:
What do you think?
The challenge with the triangle is that in scanning the list you don’t see the data. Perhaps in ‘view’ mode (e.g. you haven’t clicked in to edit it), you list the values comma separated: Troy, Mathew, Natalie. When you click (or hover over?) you could still display the IFrame bulleted list.
Left by Jeff on November 26th, 2007