Overview
A product home layout pattern uses cards to display relevant product data. It serves the function of providing a personalized overview of the product and inform users' navigation decisions. The content of each card is specific to the product and should be used to provide deep links to important aspects of the product. This article is concerned with the layout of cards rather than the content itself.
Look and feel
When to Use
Recommended
- Display the default start screen for technology products.
- Provide an overview of your product and contextualize deep links to important areas.
- Expose frequently used, create and add actions.
- Use this screen when the user clicks on the tool header logo.
Not Recommended
- Avoid duplicating the horizontal or vertical navigation of the product.
- Avoid this screen if you have too little data to display. Aim for 4 cards or more.
Anatomy and Construction
Start with a tool page and place a Responsive CSS Grid in it.
Create a grid container and choose how many columns it will take.
Configure the grid container to automatically create rows and columns.
Add the cards to hold your content. Make sure you place a title.
Repeat the process until you create all your groups and cards.
Add card content. Arrangement and responsiveness are handled by the grid.
Grid Configuration
This layout is achieved using a CSS grid. In addition each group of cards is defined as its own grid layout. Effectively you will be nesting grids and controlling their behavior for individual browser sizes. Refer to the table below to configure the grids for your product.
CSS grid - The parent grid of the product home layout
See also:
Visual Design Wiki - Responsive Grids (Fiori 3)
Visual Design Wiki - Content Container Paddings (Fiori 3)
Layout Configuration
The group titles and cards are placed in grid containers. Each container has layout properties and layout data. The layout properties define the responsive pattern for this nested grid. In the case of the product home that would be 4rem by 4rem squares spaced 1 rem apart.
Generating Rows and Columns
The rows and columns of this grid are generated automatically.
- The rows are calculated based on the content height. You can allocate the number of rows you want for each content piece. Examples for titles and cards will be shown below.
- The columns are determined by the width of the entire grid. As this is a nested grid it takes a number of columns from its parent CSS grid. You should determine that number for each grid layout (child grid).
Grid layout - The child grid in which the group titles and cards are placed
See also:
Group Title
Placement and Style
The content of each layout container consists of a title to label the group and cards to hold the group content. The following describes the configuration of the title.
Group title - Placement and style
Writing Group Titles
Each collection of cards should have a title clearly labeling it.
Recommended
- Use a non-verb name.
Examples: “Recently Updated”, "Frequently Used", "Common Actions", "Activity Monitoring" - Be concise. Aim for one-line texts, which are easier to scan.
- Choose a name that best fits your use case and the conventions in your business.
- Use title case.
- Describe groups in familiar terms for your users, their role and business area.
- Look for a title which describes all cards in the group.
- Consider using terms already used in your application.
Not Recommended
- Avoid repeating the navigation.
- Avoid creating complicated titles. Two or three words should be enough.
- Do not use punctuation at the end of titles.
See also:
Content Cards
Placement and Style
The content of each layout container consists of a title to label the group and cards to hold the group content. The following describes the configuration of the card.
Content cards - Placement and style
Writing Card Titles
Each card should have a title clearly labeling it.
Recommended
- Be concise. Aim for one-line texts, which are easier to scan.
- If the title is short, consider including qualifying information in the title.
- Choose a name that best fits your use case and the conventions in your business.
- Use a consistent pattern across all the cards on your overview page.
- Use title case.
Not Recommended
- Don’t overload the title with too much information.
- If the title is longer, or the qualifying information is more complex, use a subtitle for the qualifier.
Writing Card Subtitle
Each card could have a subtitle which provides qualifying information about the card content.
Recommended
- Use title case for short qualifiers.
Examples: "New Users", "Approved", "Completed" - Use sentence case longer explanations, or statuses involving time periods or numbers.
- Use sentence case for mixture of subtitles in sentence and title case.
Examples: "Last 30 days", "Shipping this week" - Separate multiple qualifiers with commas (,).
Example: By zone, last 30 days - Use unit of measure and qualifier in the following format (<value><unit> <qualifier>)
Example: "4.578M EUR", "1.258K Users"
See also:
Content
The product home consists of groups of cards. Each group has a title and a least two cards. This section details how to place the titles and cards in the layout as well as provide guidance for the content type and usage. Remember this is the first screen a user will see when they sign in to your product. Ensure the information presented is relevant, understandable and meaningful. The content needs to serve as guide into the product. Below you can find some suggestions of content groups.
Content - Various content types
Potential Content Types
- Recently used assets - one or more cards of personalized list of recently accessed content.
- Frequently used assets - one or more cards of SAP suggested content. Good for onboarding.
- Product metrics - product specific data visualizations. Usage, Crashes, Stability, Logs, etc.
- Favorite assets - personalized list of deep links into the product.
- Common actions - expose actions commonly undertaken by the customers.
- What's New and News - curated information about product updates and general product news.
- Product improvement and Customer Engagement - expose actions like Give Feedback or Take a Survey.
See also:
UA Product Standards - What's New
UI5 Card Explorer - Integration Cards Overview