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As we go hurling down the road of RIA innovation it's nice to have some guidelines and tools to help us create better user experiences. I think user interface design patterns should be in everyone's toolbox. They help us come up with new ideas for our UIs, it helps us communicate inside and outside of our team and finally it helps us to avoid common pitfalls.
For more background on what a design pattern is and what it should contain I'd recommend checking out Jared Spool's article on "The Elements of a Design Pattern". There's a fairly extensive list of elements listed for a pattern, which not all libraries contain, they include:
- - Pattern Name
- - Description
- - Context of Use
- - Where to Use it
- - How it Works (with visual aid)
- - Specifications
- - Related Patterns
- - Competitive Approaches
- - Source Code (quite rare)
- - Usability Research
- - Discussion
Yahoo! Design Pattern Library is a great resource for current trends in web development. I really the fact that have mini screencasts of all the patterns to augment the static screenshots.
Designing Interfaces is a website and accompanying book by Jenifer Tidwell. It has number of web and desktop software UI patterns with great write ups and explanations. Unfortunately not all the patterns from the book are on the site. You can see the book over on Google Books too.
Welie Patterns in Interaction Design is a great collection of patterns grouped based on user needs, application needs and context of design. I also really like that Welie encourages you to suggest a pattern. The more the merrier:)
UI Patterns is kind of the new kid on the block but has a very nicely laid out pattern of web UI patterns.
Ajax Patterns is another website and book combination by Michael Mahemoff. This library is not only focused on visual patterns like the others but also covers some pretty in-depth Ajax programming topics. Nice thing about this site is that it's a wiki so everyone can add to it.
It seems like most of them haven't yet documented a lot of the richer interactions possible with RIAs, but these things take time. Join the party and start documenting patterns.
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Great effort on compliling the information on to a single point. UX is being considered as one of the elements of a project's ROI, where Design patterns will paly a key role.
I love Jenifer Tidwell's book (printed in color) and I'm sure she'll forgive you for putting 2 n's in her first name.
The Yahoo! site is nice because they're constantly adding new patterns to it. So it's worth coming back to from time to time.
And don't forget things like the Windows User Experience Guidelines (tinyurl.com/24ajt8 - PDF). A lot of this is nitty-gritty details about fonts and pixel counts, but there's also some UI patterns hidden in there.
@Indu thanks. I'd like to gather as many resources as possible here. Do you have any good links to UX ROI material?
@Bernard thanks for catching that, fixed:S The Windows User Experience Guidelines are a great resource. I'll have to dig through them and pull out some juicy bits to entice people. I believe apple also has some good HCI guidelines published, I'll take a look through my links for those.
It has long been common practise to use recurring solutions to solve common problems. Such solutions are also called design patterns. Collections of software design patterns are standard reference points for the experienced user interface designer. This website seeks to better the situation for the UI designer, who struggles with the same problems as many other UI designers have struggled with before him. My Play Games
Thanks for the awesome advice.
Thanks for your great effort
Many sites I see fail to produce any kind of user interface that is appealing, and i think that it what causes them to lose many sales. - earth4energy
Thanks for the great links. I have spent a lot of my time on SEO and PPC have honestly forgotten how important it is to make a site looks nice.
Thanks for the resources Andre. I have tended to settle with maybe 10 - 15 patterns I use regularly from Booch a while back, but should look at updating with some of this more recent stuff.
great discoveries. thanks!
Thanks for the awesome advice..
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Thanks for including the links to all the resources. I have book marked the page. Thanks again
Uricinex
Bill Scott and I have compiled well over 100 patterns for:
interaction design
screen design
reusabled components
and standard controls for RIA design.
The interaction patterns are spelled out in the book "Designing Web Interfaces:Principles and Patterns for Rich Interactions". The other patterns, with hundreds of current examples, are in the blog: www.designingwebinterfaces.com.
We were influenced by many of these great resources you have mentioned.
Some good stuff here... we have similar topics posted on our site. http://www.limina-ao.com/blog
Pattern Libraries are nice... linked to task and behavioral needs.. even better.
I actually think more and more people are less worried about a good design, which gets on my nervers. With all this increased competition to get ontop of the SERPs it is annoying they disregerd good content and designs which actually deters people from returning to the site...
Free iMaca
Such solutions are also called design patterns. Collections of software design patterns are standard reference points for the experienced user interface designer.
Can definately recommend Jared Spool's article. The great thing about design patterns is that they have been proven, they work, and someone is explaining how to use them. Don't try and re invent the wheel! John, Utility Warehouse, UK
I've seen number of you asking about UX ROI so you might find this article interesting for that matter: http://www.uxpassion.com/2009/10/ux-roi-user-experience-return-on-investment/
Wao,
thanks for such nice post, i was really searching for the UI pattern resources but i was surpirzed to see this site. thanks