I downloaded the slides and audio recordings from the User Interface Conference 15 from their OnDemand website. Not being able to attend these fancy conferences is a minor annoyance, but it’s one of the things you accept when you live in a remote place like Finland. So, seeing/hearing the speeches in video or audio form is a great substitute.

The actual files for slides and audio were in folders arranged by the day the talk was held — “Day One,” “Day Two,” “Day Three.” The naming convention follows the Chicago Manual of Style, as it spells out numbers from zero to nine.

My computer’s interpretation of the stylistically correct names left room for improvement, though.

I like to have certain things neatly in order. One of those things is files on my computer. I arranged the UI15 folders alphabetically, which — to my surprise — didn’t appear in chronological order. Instead of “Day One, Day Two, Day Three,” the order was actually “Day One, Day Three, Day Two.”

Disaster.

Finding someone to blame is not straight-forward in this situation. You could blame the person, who named the files, for using words instead of numbers. Although, grammatically using words is more “right” in this situation. You could blame the computer for not understanding the meaning of the number words. Or, could it be, that we could blame the words for numbers themselves?

Numbers from one to nine in alphabetical and numerical order.

If the words for numbers under ten would automatically be in alphabetical order, the problem would disappear. But changing the deep connections between words and numbers would probably be impossible.

Words for numbers were probably first used in spoken language and later on in text. It’s quite possible they didn’t think about how the words would arrange in alphabetical order. It’s not always easy to see all the things worth considering when you’re designing something new.