List items in asymmetric balance

6 Responses

1. Pro Joni Korpi

   I finally came up with an alternative way to style vertical lists of links on narrow screens. Instead of going the iOS way (left-aligned, borders above and below, arrow icon on the right) or the Windows Phone 7 way (left-aligned, no borders or arrow icon, fill space with larger font-sizes), I aligned the link's contents along a vertical axis (placed at 33% of the screen's width in this case).

   Since the link's contents align with each other along the axis, "solidifying" the entire item, no borders are needed, and since the contents aren't fully left-aligned, there's no need to balance the link by sticking an arrow icon on the right side.

   This pattern can pretty easily be scaled up to slightly wider mobile layouts as well: font-sizes can be changed to fill up the extra space, and the axis can be moved (to 38% for example) to shift the balance.

   There are only two cons I can think of:
   1. If the viewport grows too wide in proportion to the list's visible mass, I'll have to limit its width to avoid having the links fire from accidental taps in the margins surrounding them.
   2. Each link needs at least two elements inside it, since there needs to be some sort of a counterweight on the left side of the axis. In this shot, it's the timestamp, but it could also be an icon or a thumbnail, for example.

   over 1 year ago

2. Pro Chris Armstrong

   Works for me - nicely done! :)

   over 1 year ago

3. Ben Brignell

   Where's the secret ems article!?

   over 1 year ago

4. Pro Joni Korpi

   @Ben Brignell it's coming! It basically says this:

   (target pixel size) / (base font-size) * 1em;
   24 / 16 * 1em;

   2likes

   over 1 year ago

5. Pro Aurélien Foutoyet

   Yeaah :)

   over 1 year ago

6. Ben Brignell

   @Joni Korpi that's kinda sassy... thanks

   over 1 year ago