data-display-and-selection

Data Display and Selection

Complex data collections — products, files, users, orders, tasks — have no single correct view. Different tasks call for different views. Browsing benefits from grid; comparing details benefits from list or table; bulk management benefits from a dense table with mass actions. Give users the choice.

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View Modes

Offer multiple views when the data has both visual and detailed dimensions.

View	Best for	When to default
Grid	Visual items: products, images, files, cards	When items are visually distinct and browsing is the primary task
List	Moderate detail: tasks, emails, articles	When a key piece of text or metadata drives selection
Table	Dense data: orders, reports, user management	When multiple columns of data must be compared

View toggle placement: top-right of the collection, adjacent to sort/filter controls. Use icon buttons with tooltips (grid, list, table). Persist the user's choice in localStorage.

[Filter ▾]  [Sort ▾]          [⊞ Grid]  [☰ List]  [⊟ Table]

On mobile, collapse to the view that works best for the content — grid for visual items, list for text. Do not offer a view toggle on small screens unless both views are genuinely usable.

Past a Handful of Items, Cards Become a Table

A card earns its border when it is one of a few things a reader compares side by side. Repeat that border fifteen times down a page and it separates nothing: every row is boxed, so the boxes carry no information and the reader pays for them in noise.

Past roughly six items, drop to a table. Keep a horizontal rule between rows or stripe them, and drop the side and outer rules entirely. Vertical edges do no work in a list already bounded by the page's own column, and the eye groups by proximity and alignment long before it needs a drawn line.

The exception is a card that contains something a row cannot. An image, a chart, a per-item control set, a body of text that has to wrap: those keep their card at any count, because the border is holding a composition together rather than separating one line from the next. A product grid, a gallery, a set of dashboard tiles are not covered by this rule. The test is what the border encloses. If it encloses a line of text and a value, it is decoration on a table row. If it encloses a layout, it is a card.