How to improve the default user list using Views in Drupal7

Taking the time to make the Drupal admin friendlier is rarely on the top list of priorities for clients. That said, as service providers we know the long term grief ignoring the admin can cause for administrators. You've heard it before: "How did I do that again?", "Man, I wish this were easier!"

One of the places that you can easily improve the experience is in the user administrative section. Users are really just usernames and roles, but how do you get a better view of the data and make it easier to manage? Creating a custom View with exposed filters is a great first step. Here's a side-by-side comparison of the default user management screen and a custom View I created in about 15 minutes of work:

Pretty neat, eh? Not only do we have avatar photos being displayed but we also have leveraged views for:

• More user information (First Name, Last Name, etc)
• Dynamic sorting (just click the table header)
• An add user link at the top and the bottom of the list.
• Pagination at whatever point we want it.

Since this is a simple View, we haven't done anything to enable to bulk blocking, etc of users so we also include a link to the default user admin. Another thing that you may notice is missing that could be easily added are exposed filters. As of writing this article this feature was busted in Views and Drupal 7, but would be a great and easy addition to a Drupal 6 site you wanted to trick out this way.

Here's a snapshot of the View settings that I used:

I know other people have at least dabbled in this area, so I'd love to hear/see your recipes as well!