How to display Infinity to users [closed]

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/23480193

Question

I'm designing an interface that displays a table to users with marketing spend and conversions on that marketing spend.

The table is something like this:

<table>
  <tr>
    <th>Spend</th>
    <th>Conversions</th>
    <th>Cost per Conversion</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>$45.92</td>
    <td>231</td>
    <td>$0.20</td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>$22.12</td>
    <td>0</td>
    <td>{{?}}</td>
  </tr>
</table>

The table is populated by JavaScript, which calculates the conversion rate dynamically.

When the JS runs into the third row, I end up with the string "Infinity" displaying for the conversion rate due to the divide by zero that happens (22.12/0)

What I'm wondering is, from a user experience perspective, what should I display there? These are users, not mathematicians, so using the Infinity symbol would confuse them and using 0 would portray the incorrect data.

Was it helpful?

Solution

Because your users are business folks wanting to know their advertising conversion rate, and none is available since there were no conversions, I would suggest:

n/a

By the way, as I see it, you're not giving them conversion rate per se. You're giving them cost per conversion, which should then be displayed in dollars, not a percent sign. That is, your first row should be $0.20 instead of 20%.

Conversion rate is the number of people that converted (or took action) divided by the number of people that viewed the ad. That would indeed be a percentage.

OTHER TIPS

I end up with the string "Infinity" displaying for the conversion rate due to the divide by zero that happens (22.12/0)

What I'm wondering is, from a user experience perspective, what should I display there?

If the problem is that you have a nonsensical result because the number of conversions is zero, then alert the user to that fact.

Display "no conversions" and maybe distinguish it from the rest of the table by using a different style (or audible cue for screen readers).

If you don't want to change the layout of the table, then maybe an infinity symbol with a reference to a footnote like:

$12.34  0  ∞₁
  1. Cannot calculate rate because no conversions occurred.

Maybe "not a number"? (NaN in programming).

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