Adjust `o-deck` column minimum width based on use cases that shipped
tylersticka opened this issue · 2 comments
The minimum width of columns in o-deck has not changed much since we established it. But currently, all the pages on our site are specifying column counts manually, which leads me to believe the current default probably isn't the right one.
This task involves finding a minimum value that will let us reduce our reliance on the column count modifiers. It's okay if we still use them sometimes, but ideally the most common grids wouldn't need them.
Going to take note of what I've found so far...
Our work
This seems fine as-is. It's a unique case where we want all of the items to feel a little more emphasized, and it takes one modifier to pull that off. Makes sense.
Article listings
I'm a little confused, because if I remove the 3-column modifier, it just seems better? It still caps at three columns, but the column count switches a little later, which feels more readable to me. I wonder why we set this. Maybe it was different before we adjusted container sizes? It seems like we could just remove the modifier in this case.
Speaking
This page doesn't use modifiers already, and it looks fine.
Team
This page was the initial source of criticism, and there are some awkward breaks here and there.
Most of these seem to be caused by switching to column modifiers too early and too infrequently. If we switch from 4-column@l to o-deck--3-column@l o-deck--4-column@xl, most of the awkward line breaks go away.
Single team member
As with the article listings, these don't appear any different if I remove the modifiers from them.
Takeaways
I went into this expecting to adjust the column widths, but when I tried doing that, it didn't really feel any better. I think maybe that value used to be out of step with our container width, but somewhere along the way we must have found harmony.
I think the action in this case isn't to make pattern changes, but to adjust some of the classes within our WordPress theme.
Okay, one wrinkle: I think we actually want auto-fill instead of auto-fit, because otherwise if there's only one or two items, they will take up ridiculous amounts of space.
Or maybe this should be an option... hmm... 🤔