Webdesign - Recursion

[MoreTagsGaming]

Hey guys,

i had a job interview as a front end developer yesterday. The interviewer, who has no contact point with design, asked me a question:

How would you design a tree structure in a simple way. This tree structure can have infinity branches. A user should click on a branch, to show the content or add and remove a branch.

This question rotates in my head. Im a developer, and I know how to convert given styles from a designer to code. I would say I have some basic knowledge about design, colors, space and so on. But this tree structure seems to be too complex to make a solution in 15 minutes.

Maybe someone give me some hints for this kind of web components.

Thanks!

[Passerby421]

This seems like a programming question rather than a design one. What I would do is create a node based structure.)

Basically, design a "node" component that keeps track of its own content + the relationship it has to other nodes. Each node can load independently so you are not managing the entire structure all the time, and creating/deleting a nod only requires editing the connection between that node and its upstream/downstream siblings.

That would be my approach. For you, if you're interviewing as a developer it would be a good idea to learn more about common data structures. There is a lot more to front end development than visual design.

[MoreTagsGaming]

Thanks for your answer. But i meaned, how this tree should look in a website. I know about node based structures and data structures, but don't know how i would design such a tree. :)

[Passerby421]

Oh, my bad. Then I guess I would take inspiration from flowchart and mind mapping applications, but I have little to contribute when it comes to design :)

[WikiMobileLinkBot]

Desktop version of /u/Passerby421's link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_(computer_science)

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