Launchers, photo browsers, anything that uses a grid layout for linear data. Grids are great when you need to look up something that has two-dimensional data, but they’re widely overused in mobile and web applications.
Launchers, photo browsers, anything that uses a grid layout for linear data. Grids are great when you need to look up something that has two-dimensional data, but they’re widely overused in mobile and web applications.
Literally what the community is for; I’m not throwing shade at your post. Just at your opinion. ;)
Part of it probably comes down to what you’re looking at. Photos in a folder on a computer? Grid. Image searches in a web browser? Grid. Posts on an image board (e.g. imgur)? Grid. Photos being viewed on a phone? Linear is obviously better, as you want to see each one full-screen.
If they’re 100 px images and you’re only getting 5 per row, that’s horrible use of space. Even with ample spacing I’d expect at least 10 on a 1080p monitor, ideally more like 15. An image search (for example) displays 9-12 images per row for me right now. On a phone, it’s a different story, so that probably contributes a lot to our difference in opinion (I assume you’re thinking of a phone screen given the ‘5 pictures per row’ comment.)
For me, it comes down to intent. Why am I looking at 500 images at once?
For something casual, grids are fine. If I’m deciding on a phone background or picking an avatar from a pre-set list, a grid is great. I let my attention casually wander through until something catches my eye. In that case, filling the screen with as many options as possible is ideal.
But if I’m looking for one item in particular, or if I’m otherwise having to examine each item sequentially, a grid makes less sense. More info on the screen at once doesn’t help, it only distracts. And looking across a row, then down, then across seems to exhaust my brain worse than looking continuously in one direction.
But maybe that’s just me. I find I have trouble filtering out irrelevant information in many aspects. I guess my main point is that there may be better UI design in many cases that we don’t consider, because we assume we should fit as much as possible on the screen (whether mobile or otherwise). But again, that might just be relevant to a small subset of people.