UI 密度

Interfaces are becoming less dense.

界面变得越来越稀疏。

I’m usually one to be skeptical of nostalgia and “we liked it that way” bias, but comparing websites and applications of 2024 to their 2000s-era counterparts, the spreading out of software is hard to ignore.

我通常对怀旧和“我们喜欢它那样”的偏见持怀疑态度，但是将2024年的网站和应用程序与其2000年代的对应物进行比较，软件的扩散是很难忽视的。

To explain this trend, and suggest how we might regain density, I started by asking what, exactly, UI density is. It’s not just the way an interface looks at one moment in time; it’s about the amount of information an interface can provide over a series of moments. It’s about how those moments are connected through design design decisions, and how those decisions are connected to the value the software provides.

为了解释这一趋势，并提出如何恢复密度，我首先问了一下什么是UI密度。它不仅仅是界面在某一时刻的外观；它涉及到界面在一系列时刻中所能提供的信息量。它涉及到这些时刻通过设计决策的连接方式，以及这些决策与软件提供的价值之间的联系。

I’d like to share what I found. Hopefully this exploration helps you define UI density in concrete and useable terms. If you’re a designer, I’d like you to question the density of the interfaces you’re creating; if you’re not a designer, use the lens of UI density to understand the software you use.

我想分享我所发现的。希望这次探索能帮助您以具体和可用的术语定义UI密度。如果您是设计师，我希望您质疑您正在创建的界面的密度；如果您不是设计师，请使用UI密度的视角来理解您使用的软件。

Visual density

视觉密度

We think about density first with our eyes. At first glance, density is just how many things we see in a given space. This is visual density. A visually dense software interface puts a lot of stuff on the screen. A visually sparse interface puts less stuff on the screen.

我们首先通过眼睛来考虑密度。乍一看，密度就是在给定空间中我们看到的东西的数量。这就是视觉密度。视觉密集的软件界面在屏幕上放置了很多东西。视觉稀疏的界面在屏幕上放置较少的东西。

Bloomberg’s Terminal is perhaps the most common example of this kind of density. On just a single screen, you’ll see scrolling sparklines of the major market indices, detailed trading volume breakdowns, tables with dozens of rows and columns, scrolling headlines containing the latest news from agencies around the world, along with UI signposts for all the above with keyboard shortcuts and quick actions to take.

彭博终端可能是这种...