Sorting Authors by user defined variable

Hi there,

I’m coming up completely blank on how to add a little more customisation to a site I’m helping a friend with.

The site is a record label, and I’ve worked out a system to get all the artists listed on a single page, however the only way I can work out to order this list of artists is alphabetically as I’m querying the wp_users table (I assume) and there are no customisable database columns that I could alter herein.

I have a feeling I need to merge data from the wp_usermeta table, this might allow me to use the AIM meta field as a pseudo “Order” field.

A condensed version of the code I’m using to display this author list is below, and a sample of the page I’m applying this to is over at:

https://devel.invisibleagent.com/artists/

<ul id="artist-list">

<?php
 global $wpdb, $table_prefix; // set global WP vars needed for script
 $order = 'display_name'; // set order for users table query
 $user_ids = $wpdb->get_col("SELECT ID FROM $wpdb->users ORDER BY $order DESC"); // query users

 // Start Author Profile Loop
 foreach($user_ids as $user_id) : // start authors' profile "loop"
	 $user = get_userdata($user_id); // retrieve author (i.e. user) details
	 $level = $table_prefix . 'user_level'; // set 'user_level' usermeta meta_key record
	 $user->user_level = $user->$level; // assign 'user_level' property to $users
	 $role = $table_prefix . 'capabilities'; // set 'role' usermeta table meta_key record
	 $user->role = array_keys($user->$role); // assign 'role' property to $user
	 $user->role = $user->role[0]; // make sure $user->role is not an array
	?>
	<?php
	 if( ($user->role == 'author') || ($user->role == 'contributor') ) : // show users with role of 'author' or 'contributor'

	 $image_dir = 'wp-content/uploads/userphoto'; // directory where author images reside
	  // The image file name will always be lowercase, so we need to ensure that the user_login is lowercase as well
	  $image_file = preg_replace('/\ /', '-', strtolower($user->user_login));
	 $image_ext = 'jpg'; // author image extension
	 $image_path = trim($image_dir, '/') . '/' . $image_file . '.' . $image_ext;
	 if(file_exists(ABSPATH . $image_path)) :
	 $author_image = get_bloginfo('home') . '/' . $image_path;
	?>

	   <li class="artist-box">
		   <p><a href="<?php get_author_link(true, $user->ID, "$user->user_nicename"); ?>"><img class="artist-image" src="<?php echo $author_image; ?>" alt="<?php echo $user->nickname; ?>" title="Photo of <?php echo $user->nickname; ?>" /></a></p>
		   <p class="artist-name"><a href="<?php get_author_link(true, $user->ID, "$user->user_nicename"); ?>"><?php echo $user->nickname; ?></a></p>
	 </li>

	<?php endif; ?>

<?php
	 endif; // end of admin and user_level test
 endforeach; // end of authors' profile 'loop'
?>
 </ul><!-- #artist-list -->

Any thoughts on how to crack this would be fantastic!