The clustering of items by shared attributes, balancing meaningful structure against the fragmentation of a flat list. Grouping helps actors detect patterns, draw comparisons, and focus on the subsets that matter most to their current goal.
Orientation
Groups can be laid out both vertically and horizontally. TODO: canvas…
Related components
- Details — expand/collapse for group sections
Consequences
- the collection has visible structure along a chosen attribute, so differences between subsets are readable without the actor tallying anything by hand
- the grouping attribute is a claim about which of an item's attributes matters most, and an item that genuinely belongs in two groups has to be filed in one
- headers cost space and carry collapse state, so a grouping that yields many small groups fragments the list it was meant to organise
Appears in
Composing views
- Framing the collection, step 5 — Give the collection visible structure
Related patterns
Complements
Preceded by
- Data view — acts on the framed collection the view already holds
Enabled by
- Drag and drop — moving a card between groups is grouping's write path: the drop re-files the item under the destination's value
- Selection — a selection is the common payload of bulk grouping