In the life admin pack, we used ‘headers’ to break up the categories.
10-19 Life admin
11 Me & other living things 🙋
11.10 ■ Personal records 🗂️
...
11.16 Legal documents & certificates
11.17 Academic records & qualifications
11.20 ■ Physical health & wellbeing 🫀
11.21 Health insurance & claims
11.22 Health records & registrations
...
They all occupy a AC.I0 ID, and in the main version we gave them a bit of visual distinction with the black square and an emoji. They group IDs in to blocks of 10s, e.g. 11.20 … 11.29. You can see we skipped some IDs to ‘jump’ to the next header.
So do I recommend headers?
No.
That was a short blog post
Okay, it’s not that simple. We used headers in this situation because the pack, specifically category 11 Me & other living things, is fairly busy. There are 49 IDs in that category: half-full.
But more importantly we used them because this system was designed not to change. In the manual we say that you should try really hard not to create any more IDs. It’s about as static an area as you’ll ever have.
Because the problem with headers is that it’s easy to design yourself in to a corner. You might not think that you’ll ever run up against that header, but give it a few years. Remember how long these systems might last.
So when is it okay to use headers?
In the following situations, I grant you my cautious blessing to use headers.
- Highly-designed, mostly-static systems. Like 'life admin’.
- Systems with very broad IDs. Like 'life admin’.
I don’t think ‘headers’ will ever be a page on the main site. A page there represents a fully-endorsed part of the system that most people are encouraged to use. Bear that in mind before you use them.
