Comments on Building Block Definitions (Containers)

Trevor Bollers — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:04:14 GMT

Joe, Thank you for develolping this series. I have found them very very useful. This takes all of the conceptual talk about containers and building blocks and applies it which is what allows for further thought. I am very happy to have found this series.

Thanks a lot

I wish that I could publish this to my LinkedIn account for my contacts and others that ask me questions to see.

Trevor Bollers

Joe Lamantia — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:03:27 GMT

@Floris: You could translate the blocks to this sort of situation (if I understand correctly) – though I recommend keeping in mind the idea that the blocks are aimed at tile-based modular design and development situations, rather than categories in an information structure.

Very true that the blocks can be split into smaller elements; if introducing further granularity suits your purposes, I encourage doing so. The blocks are meant to be an open system that grows with adoption by the community, so I also encourage sharing any sorts of ‘extensions’ that come about.

Seven levels provides considerable potential for scaling with structure, while retaining flexibility.

@Patrick: I’m glad to hear it’s useful to you!

Patrick Stapleton — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 04:44:21 GMT

yes, yes, I can use this :)

Floris Nijdam — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 04:03:13 GMT

Thanks for a great addition to the series Joe.

I’m trying to convert your theoretical approach to a -for me- more tangible example. Would it be fair to translate your top level stacking orders like this (for most situations):
- Portal Suite = Website (as in top navigation like “consumer, business
- Portal = Main category
- Section = Subcategory

One other thing I was wondering was: Why 7 levels?
Some websites have more structural levels than the ‘portal’ and ‘section’ level. Also, the tile building blocks could be split up in even smaller tiles (like the header, body and footer section) and even those could be split up etc… Is your definition based on being “workable” or is there another reason?

Keep up the good work. Waiting for #4 :)