Filter by Proximity, Sort by Most Recent
This post is about a user interface pattern, a common use case for it and an example implementation. The pattern is adding an extra dimension to a timeline. The use case is showing results that are both recent and nearby. The example implementation uses a slider widget and an adequate-result-volume algorithm.
When you have 1000 messages and you want to prioritise the best 50 to display, sort is the most common pattern. If the user is interested in the latest messages, sort by most recent. If they want to see the messages other users found interesting, sort by a metric like views or rating. However, the web is increasingly about real time data. Developers are processing streams and modelling tubes instead of tables. It rarely makes sense to display real time data in any order apart from most recent. So, what do you do when you want to prioritise by another dimension, like proximity or rating?
