If you're new to SharePoint, maybe this will help smooth that along:

1- Go to the List or Library that you want to create a view in.

2- In the ribbon at the top pick "Library" or "List"

3- Click the "Create View" button

4- Now you can pick what type of view you'd like. You can copy an existing view that you just want to tweak without changing the original view, or you can create one of these formats:

• Standard View

• Calendar View

• Access View

• Datasheet View

• Gantt View

• Custom View in SharePoint Designer

Let's say for example, that you just want a standard view, so you click on Standard view.  Now you need to think about some things:

• What do you want to name your view?

• Do you want it to be a personal view (only you can see it) or a public view (everybody can see it, and you need to have certain permissions to be able to do this

• What columns do you want to see on the view? One common mistake is to pick everything, but matter of the fact is: usually you'll only ever really look at a few, so you should think about this carefully both during creating a view as well as after you've created it and are using it. Don't hesitate to come back to edit the view after you start using it when you realize that there are these 2 columns on it that you never really look at.
  Make sure your view includes the minimal number of lookup columns (fields of type Lookup, Person/Group, or Workflow Status), because each lookup you add to your view incurs a cost, and once you go beyond 8 (default, your farm administrator may have changed this number) your view will just stop working and require that you change it to get rid of one or more of these fields.

• Do you want to group your view by a certain column? For example, if you were to create a view on a list of all your tasks, you may want to group them by due date.

• Do you need to sort the view in a particular way? If so, how, and is it necessary? If the list is large, this will have a performance implication.
• Do you need to display any totals on your view, and if yes - how many items are in the list? If it's more than a couple of thousand, you have to think about whether that is necessary, because it will impact your experience negatively as the view will become significantly slower. For more information on how or why this happens, you can read this blog post Consider performance when using totals in SharePoint views (http://sharepoint.microsoft.com/blogs/GetThePoint/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=295)

• How many items do you want your view to return, and should it page them or do you just want to see the top X? If you don't think you'll ever go to that 2nd or 3rd page, then it's best to limit the returned set as much as possible.

• Do I need to see the items inside folders, or do I just want everything bubbled up into my view?

• Will I need to use this view on the go? If so, you want to make sure you think about the Mobile settings for whether to enable the view for mobile access, and how many items it should display in a list view web part.

Now that you know all the things to think about when creating a view, here's an example:  

Task: Let's say that the default view with all items is not good enough for my department, and I need to make a view that everybody will find useful, instead of expecting each person to create a personal view, or filtering on the default view each time. I need a view to show all the items in this task list that were "Assigned To" whoever is using that view. I want it sorted by "Due Date", soonest first, and I want to see 100 items in a page instead of the default 30, and there are a total of roughly 500 items in the list but less than 100 of them belong to any particular person at a time.  I also want to group these documents by 'Client Name', and I want to see a total on the page for "Amount Due". Here's what I'd do:

1. I'd Create a View, which I'll call "My Assignments"

2. I'd make it a public view, and I will also make it the default view.

3. I'll choose the following columns to display: Task, Contact Person (Lookup), Contact Number, Due Date, Amount Due

4. I'll specify that the view should group by 'Client Name'

5. I'll specify that the view should include a total on Amount Due
6. I'll add a filter for "Assigned To = [Me]"

7. I don't have folders, so doesn't matter if I set folders to show up or not.

8. I'll sort by Due Date, ascending.

9. I'll set Item Limit to 100, and disable paging. I just want to see the top 100.

10. I want to be able to see this view on the go, so I'll leave Mobile enabled

11. All done! Test it out.. works, get somebody else to try out the new default view.

Dina Ayoub

Program Manager on SharePoint, MSFT