Article: The Elements of a Design Pattern

UIEtips 1/24/06: The Elements of a Design Pattern

Since we first talked about them in 2003, Design Patterns have become a popular method for teams to tame the consistent-design-management tiger. We’re seeing many of our clients turn to an in-house built pattern library to help them coordinate a consistent look while allowing innovative design to appear as required.

Building a library takes a lot of work, especially at first. However, unlike standards and guidelines, organizations can distribute that work across all members of the design team. Our research has turned up informal techniques, where teams hold a lunch party where each written pattern buys you a slice of pizza, to formal review techniques, like those employed by the folks at Yahoo! (See the excellent Boxes and Arrows case study.)

We’ve been very interested in how various clients are going about building out their libraries. In this week’s UIEtips, I recount some of the more interesting pattern elements we’ve come across. If you’re thinking of building out your library, this could help you get started.

Are you building a design pattern library? What are the elements that you like the best? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Read the article here.

Christine Perfetti and I will be discussing design patterns in the Effective Dissemination portion of our upcoming UIE Roadshow tour. If you haven’t registered for this, you may want to do so very soon — Seattle is on the verge of selling out and the other cities are filling up quickly. See the details at the UIE 2006 Roadshow site.