Design with Difficult Data

You can’t account for all possible data, but if you incorporate some of these less-than-visually-ideal cases early in your design process, your output will be that much more resilient.

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I often start a wireframe by compiling two lists. The first contains the goals a visitor to this screen needs to accomplish. The second has the elements that need to live on this screen. Be sure to include all of the elements—from the primary content to advertisements, and down to a privacy link in the footer.

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In the neglected troughs of responsive design, we find two common pitfalls: the stretched mobile layout and the squished desktop design layout.

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indulge initially by showing the layout with ideal data Then show how durable and flexible the design is by showing variations with difficult data. This not only helps people understand your design but also the value of your process and expertise.

Important, and often overlooked. Also: watch out for design software and implementation handling things like line breaks differently

The old computer science adage reads, “garbage in, garbage out.” Instead, aim for “garbage in, hrm … not bad.”

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Watch for elements containing lists where the amount of items in those lists may vary significantly. Imagine a layout with cards where each card includes a set of tags. One card may have three tags while another may have twenty-five.

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When it comes to design elements that may display widely variable contents (profile photos or names, for example), you can do better than using real data. Go beyond realistic data. Get difficult data.

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If you can handle the worst, the common cases will be a breeze.

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Posted on September 14, 2018