How to display indexes for UITableView in a complex list?

How to display indexes for UITableView in a complex list?

• I have a UITableView of UITableViewStylePlain with sections titled as districts (neighborhoods) in New York City. I am struggling how to implement the indexes (quick "links" on the right). Should they be: The first letter of the district (Upper West Side -> U) The first letter of each word of the district (Upper West Side -> UWS) Show all the letters but some don't "work" (no "J" district) Pluses of each: No duplicate letters (Upper West Side and Upper East Side are both U), simple list with a low number of elements Distinct entry for each district, easier to associate each district Full list looks better Pitfalls of each: To get to Upper West Side, it would first go to U (Upper East Side) Three (even two) letters looks weird. Especially when selected. UX elements that have no response (not good practice) I have attached a screenshot in case this is hard to understand. Any ideas/suggestions? Edit: (as per @daniel eckmann's request) Without going into too much detail, the app is a listing of shops (50-100) around NYC that offer a very specific product and/or service. This screen is the main/lainding page for it and lists all the items. The user can also search, view them on a map (seperate screen) and filter the view based on certain criteria.

• Answer:

  Your second suggestion (and as per your image) are perfectly usable and meets the requirement to be able to browse the list and jump to a specific point. Usability trumps 'looking a bit weird' in this instance. However, depending on your use case, another option would be to split all the neighborhood into expandable panels so that the user can scroll up and down the list of neighborhood and find the one they wanted and expand that. It's less scrolling but potentially one extra click. – Wireframes created with http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups It really depends on what you want to use this list for. If it's browsing all the available items then your suggestion is probably better because you can see everything at once, but if it's for easily finding a particular item in a neighborhood then this option may be worth considering.