Chapter 5. Lists of Things
This chapter covers only one topic: how to display lists of items in an interactive setting. Just items. Actual data—complex and highly structured data sets—isn’t covered until Chapter 7.
Why do lists merit their own chapter, you may ask?
Consider the many types of items that get shown in lists: articles, pages, photos, videos, maps, books, games, movies, TV shows, songs, products, email messages, blog entries, status updates, forum posts, comments, search results, people, events, files, documents, apps, links, URLs, tools, modes, actions. (Add your own!)
Practically every moderately complex interface or website ever designed includes lists. This chapter will help you think about them logically and clearly, understand different design aspects, and make good trade-offs when designing interfaces that use lists.
Since so many other interface design topics overlap with this one, this chapter will often refer to other chapters and patterns. Menus are handled in Chapter 6, complicated data in Chapter 7, and links and other navigational mechanisms in Chapter 3. Mobile platforms have very specific design constraints, so Chapter 10 will be referred to as well. But there’s still a lot left over.
Use Cases for Lists
Before jumping into a design, it’s useful to analyze the use cases for a list. What will people need to do with it? Which of these scenarios apply?
- Getting an overview
What impression will someone get from the list as a whole? In some cases, a user should be ...
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