How to design a List section

I tend to ask one question in review: can you name an item without reading the whole row? If the title, date, or name is not the first thing the eye hits, the list is competing with itself. Ruled rows work when metadata is the point—round, year, outlet, time. They fail when every row also wants a paragraph; the line height blows up and the scan rhythm dies. Grids help when the item is visual, but equal-height cards punish uneven titles. Hiro’s news cards already show the problem: some headlines wrap four lines, others two, and the “Read more” footer becomes the only stable landmark. Stacked display type, like Ryden’s service index, is a list only if the labels stay few and the secondary language stays quiet. Past five or six items, monument type becomes a wall. Inline client rolls are honest about incompleteness—“to name a few”—but they hide count and order. They are the wrong tool when the roster is the product. A useful test: cover the images. If the remaining type still ranks the set, the structure is doing the work. If not, you designed a mood board.

List design questions