What is a good term to describe different ways to view the same data?
Software gives us different ways to view the exact same data with each "view" targeted at a specific task.
For example, in Stack Exchange, questions can be viewed in
- The review queue where you only see questions listed which need to be reviewed
- The main question list where everything is listed
- Edit history pages where you can see and compare every version of a question
- Mods have access to vote fraud tools
- etc
Every one of those "views" is highly customized for the task at hand showing only those pieces of the data that matter at that moment.
Is there a good term to describe this feature without all the long winded explanation?
View strikes me as being the usual term. Other possibilities are view(ing) mode, display mode or window, depending on the exact context.
I would just say the data is in a different format. Techies and non-techies can understand this.
the way in which something is arranged or set out.
The term "perspective" comes to mind.
"Layout" or "Perspective" or perhaps just "View"