Nov 6, 2025

Tables don't fit in your pocket

Got lots of data to display? Use a table! It looks great on your machine and clearly lays out all the information for your users. Problem is, your users mainly use mobile devices, and tables don’t fit well in your pocket.

Name	Role	Phone	Email	Location	Department	Status
Aisha Khan	Product Manager	+44 20 7000 0001	[email protected]	London	Product	Active
Liam Green	Designer	+44 20 7000 0002	[email protected]	Bristol	Design	Active
Chen Wei	Engineer	+44 20 7000 0003	[email protected]	Manchester	Engineering	Active
Sofia Rossi	Data Analyst	+44 20 7000 0004	[email protected]	London	Data	On leave
Mateo Silva	DevOps	+44 20 7000 0005	[email protected]	Edinburgh	Infrastructure	Active
Priya Patel	Customer Success	+44 20 7000 0006	[email protected]	Leeds	Support	Active
Noah Brown	Marketing	+44 20 7000 0007	[email protected]	Birmingham	Marketing	Active
Yuki Tanaka	Researcher	+44 20 7000 0008	[email protected]	Oxford	R&D	Active
Amelia Jones	HR	+44 20 7000 0009	[email protected]	Cambridge	People	Active
Diego Alvarez	Sales	+44 20 7000 0010	[email protected]	London	Sales	Inactive
Hannah Lee	Engineer	+44 20 7000 0011	[email protected]	Leicester	Engineering	Active
Omar Khan	QA	+44 20 7000 0012	[email protected]	Hull	Quality	Active
Isabella Moretti	Designer	+44 20 7000 0013	[email protected]	Brighton	Design	On leave
Luca Bianchi	Engineer	+44 20 7000 0014	[email protected]	Bristol	Engineering	Active
Maya Singh	Data Scientist	+44 20 7000 0015	[email protected]	London	Data	Active
Ethan Walker	Support	+44 20 7000 0016	[email protected]	Cardiff	Support	Active
Zara Ahmed	Legal	+44 20 7000 0017	[email protected]	London	Legal	Active
Lucas Martin	Finance	+44 20 7000 0018	[email protected]	London	Finance	Active
Nora Schmidt	Engineer	+44 20 7000 0019	[email protected]	Birmingham	Engineering	Inactive
Leo Fischer	Product	+44 20 7000 0020	[email protected]	Manchester	Product	Active
Grace Wilson	Research	+44 20 7000 0021	[email protected]	Oxford	R&D	Active
Hiroshi Sato	Engineer	+44 20 7000 0022	[email protected]	Glasgow	Engineering	Active

It’s not ideal for your users to need to scroll horizontally over half a dozen columns, then vertically down to find a particular row. How can we give our users a significantly better experience?

If your data is geographic then consider using an interactive map. Markers represent data points (equivalent to rows in a table) and clicking on a marker can open a popup or page with more details.

Some data lends itself to a vertical card list, such as contact details. In this example, each card represents a person, complete with profile photo, phone and email. When the card is clicked, a page opens with more details of the contact.

Aisha Khan

Product Manager

+44 20 7000 0001 • [email protected]

Liam Green

Designer

+44 20 7000 0002 • [email protected]

Chen Wei

Engineer

+44 20 7000 0003 • [email protected]

Another approach is accordions. These are popular on website FAQ pages.

Why not just keep a table?

Try scrolling the above table on your mobile phone and you’ll see why I’m a fan of other approaches.

However, accordions have downsides

Most people probably won’t read the content in your accordions because the user needs to take an action to open it. If content is critical, keep it visible.

You can also summarise data using pie charts. These are great for giving a high-level insight into data which can often be lacking from tables. However you can’t deep-dive into specific data points unless you combine this with one of the other data view types too.

100%Total

Product A — 40%
Product B — 25%
Product C — 20%
Product D — 15%

Bar and line charts are also a strong choice in certain situations. These work well when there is a time or sequential element to the data. On mobile, if you can fit the bars vertically then that’s great. If not, consider a vertical arrangement.

Team A
75%
Team B
50%
Team C
30%

As a user, how would you prefer to see information on mobile?