
Hi, I’m Brian Dys — a photographer from the inside looking out · a composer entangled in electronic music · a UX designer · a spouse, a parent, & everything in between.
In finding the best term for separating a collection of items, which to use—list or group?
Brain dump:
List implies linearity, structure.
Group implies randomness.
—
In generalizing the semantics of all items in a collection—in an HTML document—go for group.
<ul class="list group">…</ul> <div class="group">…</div> <dl class="list group">…</dl>
—
It is important to note that the all HTML elements in the examples could express hierarchy by nesting other elements—but it is in the collection of items that list or group provides semantics.
To recap:
Use list for collection of items that implies order (yes, even for <ul>).
Use group for collection of items that does not imply order.
But I know every rock and tree and creature
Has a life, has a spirit, has a name
Colors of the Wind
In terms of User Interface Design, every element must serve its purpose—its reason for being. In able to be identified, it must have a name and a description of what it does.
The Name—Description—Purpose Information Structure or NDP becomes a tool in identifying any UI element within a system. The Designer would have a glimpse of what it is called (Name), what it does (Description), and why it exists (Purpose).
Be a jack of all trades and a master of none or a master of one (and more)? It is an age-old question.
It depends on the environment where you want to focus on:
In general, be the best at one thing and not so best or at least familiar with other things.
There are many default usability styles designed by the browser.
Sometimes it is best to leave it alone because it covers a lot of area that you might not be able to cover if you nitpick it.
Now if the color of the outline clashes with your branding like “blue is really banned from your UI” then change it.
Or if the outline color is the same as the background color, it won’t be seen, of course, so change it.
It’s important to note that styles whose main purpose is usability must be left alone especially if your purpose is to simply comply with color schemes.
There are initial points to take into consideration in order to make sense of the connection between HTML elements (<p>
, <a>
, <div>
, etc.) and CSS properties (display, font-size, background-color, etc.).
You might notice that it is all about HTML elements. This is because HTML elements already have implicit CSS rules in them thru the browser. It is called the User Agent Styles or browser default styles.
Now your question borders around creating your own styles, thus, overriding the default styles.