posted on
Friday, September 18, 2009 7:59 PM
I'm sitting in front of my mac, searching for an idea on how to make a multiple choice usable. I'm in hurry and I've a very short time to do it.
Sadly, but it's every day's story.
I write something on the google seach bar, hoping to find something that can help me.
So, I found Patterns library sites.
Design pattern history
The concept of using a library of examples to find standard solutions to solve common problems was developed by Christopher Alexander in 1977 in a architectural book.
"The book provides rules and pictures, and leaves decisions to be taken from the precise environment of the project. It describes exact methods for constructing practical, safe, and attractive designs at every scale, from entire regions, through cities, neighborhoods, gardens, buildings, rooms, built-in furniture, and fixtures down to the level of doorknobs."
This concept is widely used in software architecture to organize and to design software, but is a relatively a new concept in UI design.
How patterns could be useful for UI design
In the user interface design using a framework based on "pattern" began with the library of XHTML+CSS modules. Everyone of us knows very well the importance of these libraries and we usually use them to build our code architecture.
The same value has the UI pattern: they immediately give to us an idea of a possible solution to study and solve our personal scenario.Having some elements to begin to work, some answers to basic problems, puts our mind in the condition to think how to improve user experience and consistency related to whole application.
It is not only copy&paste, Patterns give us a different and rational way of approaching a problem, in a context that has very few rational things: design and user experience are not simple to categorize.
There are many examples of UI pattern on the web.
I used three, but I discover every days one new :)
http://quince.infragistics.com/
Is the first UI pattern site that I used. Here it is possible to find some solution organized by type of user tasks.
http://patterntap.com/
This one is a library of samples, not all are real "pattern", but a collection of inspirationl graphic element, organized by kind of problem.
http://www.welie.com/patterns/index.php
This is a collection of pattern for interaction design, that explains what you can use for UI problems and how.